


Bound by Choice

by OsmiumAnon



Series: One and the Other [2]
Category: Warhammer - All Media Types, Warhammer 40.000, Warhammer 40k (Novels) - Various Authors
Genre: Aeldari, Daddy Issues, Eldar, F/M, Heresy, Massive family issues all told actually, Mommy Issues, Original Character(s), POV Female Character, POV Male Character, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Sex is not a good coping mechanism, Space Marines, They're fucking eldar, copious heresy, don't show the commissar, ennui in space, extensive plot, it comes with the territory, too many feelings, too much plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-10
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:28:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21746038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OsmiumAnon/pseuds/OsmiumAnon
Summary: Months ago an Astartes and an Eldar found shaky alliance. Now gone their separate ways, there is no peace to be found, no glorious return for those left behind. Iselyth lingers in the hollow halls of her craftworld as Qin tries to gather a future from fragments. When the mask is removed, there is no longer a place to hide.ORAn eldar wonders why the heck her life is hard
Series: One and the Other [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1199503
Comments: 72
Kudos: 199





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> What up fukkers. It's only been like months and months since I last updated, but hey. I said I weren't done and I said what I said. My deepest thanks and appreciation for the surprising number of people that read Behind the Mask and commented (especially commented, that is always lovely) and made it the third most read Warhammer fic on this site. What the fuck. 
> 
> This is the launching point of a new arc, still following the same goobers but with a larger cast to start with. They're back amongst civilization now, though they have a lot to figure out. There might be minor grammatical issues or spelling mistakes. I'll work them out eventually. Some minor retconning too about the number of scouts in the Jade Host that are surviving.  
> The upside is that I have a full story already plotted out, so I'm not making shit up as I go, the downside is that my muse is a fickle, fickle bitch who I occasionally have to chase down and manhandle into servitude. But! As I said in the final note for Behind the Mask - I will never go MIA without giving warning. If I feel like I cannot/will not finish this, I WILL put up an update. I fucking hate fanfic writers that ghost. As always, I lurk the /aco/ thread. 
> 
> Also pronunciation notes - Iselyth I always imagined as sounding similar to 'Islet' if the s was not a silent - with a tongue tap on the t and a suggestion of exhalation like 'tuh'. Double gay, I know. It doesn't much matter.

* * *

****There is no art more beautiful and diverse as the art of death.** **

* * *

**PALMS BRUSHED FLAT** against the subtly warm, humming panels of the grand doors to her family’s hall. Birthed of wraithbone, entwined with green wood, steeped in vines and creepers: she could feel the hum and beat of life, so vibrant, so vital. She winced at the touch. A push – that’s all it ever took, even as the smallest child barely able to walk. Living they were and they knew all members of Tathuah. _Iselyth –_ whispered the wind, gusting around her, sucked into the widening opening, like the hall took a great inhale. _Iselyth,_ whispered the hall in her mind and in its eaves. _Iselyth,_ whispered the memories, as vivid and sticky as blood in the eyes. _Iselyth,_ whispered her mother. Like a pat on the head, like a smile from an old friend: and she was only a handful of passings old, all eyes and legs and arms and ears and looking up at the bright, wide world.

The bright, wide world.

It was perverse, this dome. Her dome. Her family’s dome. So bright and lively, always on the cusp, the very edge of bloom. Pollen hummed in the air, sticky, catching like motes of light, settling to garnish tresses and eyelashes. Suffused with eternal potential, humming and hard, ready to explode into vernal vibrance. Always held back. Always but the _edge_. The _moment_. Never to be let free, to be unleashed to be as life could be.

The metaphor disgusted her. She bulled through the still-opening doors, shoulders set, face hard, like diamond, like flint, fit to cut and cut maybe instead the memories that surrounded her, crowded her, danced and cavorted and lingered. Like obsidian maybe, sharp as a whisper but as enduring. The hall was spring – she was winter. Her father sat his throne and she needed no introductions, of course. The hall already announced her and besides: how many visitors did Tathuah entertain?

But her father was here, presiding still, and he watched her approach sternly but not unkindly. His daughter finally returned home. For good? Perhaps. Perhaps. Some days it felt like the fire that drove her into the Aspect shrines had burned out so thoroughly and completely as to leave not even ashes behind. Other mornings she paced, snarling in her sunny chambers, nails digging into her palms as she seethed. Directionless anger, swamped by memories of Ataenith and Nualn and Cathchach and – and – she clamped down on the rising tide, swallowed hard and compressed and packed it away, looking up at her father, sitting proud on his throne.

‘Father,’ she whispered, dropping to her knees, pressing her forehead to the living carpet. She could feel the living weave creak and flex against her skin, always in motion, always growing, always spreading. ‘Father,’ she said again and rocked back on her haunches, kneeling and looking up at the Solstice Throne. A thin smear of sap clung to her forehead, tickling. He peered down at her as calm as ever, silent yet free of any judgement. Stern but not unkindly. The sun to mother’s moon.

‘I’m back,’ she said and the hall ate her words, oddly muffled and without an echo despite the vaulted reaches of the ceiling, climbing up into emerald gloom. ‘I hope you did not worry when I did not return. I hope…I hope I did not cause you pain.’ Two words hung on her tongue, nearly spoken, bitten back in time: more pain. That she did not cause _more_ pain. More pain than tumbling down’ Khaine’s Path. More pain than drawing more and more distant with each year. More pain than was already felt by the aching hole that was mother, the empty lower throne beside the Solstice where she once would sit. Mother, beautiful Mother, beautiful and silver, shining: wearing the tiny, half-hidden smile she always nurtured, eyes deep and infinite and full of love. Never one for many words or great displays, mother – but even the slightest smile, the smallest laugh: that was enough. Enough to light the stars, for Iselyth to soar with the birds.

Funny, with mother’s death, how much Father resembled her now. The moon had set and the sun hung low on the horizon and Tathuah lingered in eternal twilight on the cusp of bloom.

‘It was the Devourer, father. Mindless beasts. Monsters. We expected trouble but not – not like that. They had no masters or minds but they were so many. Too many. They didn’t warn us, father. The farseers. Surely they had seen that possibility. But they didn’t warn us.’

 _That’s why you use your eyes, Isse_. She felt the impact of a body against her back, jolting her, sending her staggering, trying to keep her feet, felt the warmth of breath against her cheek, the chiding tones of her brother. Rangy arms wrapped around her shoulders, as heavy as iron and ephemeral as a wince. She raised a hand and brushed back hair and memory. His voice faded as fast as it came.

‘But I did everything, Father, everything they asked. I brought back their souls. My friends. All of them. Because they died, Father. All of them.’ She laughed, hard and sharp, a crack of glass.

‘Because they always die, don’t they, Father?’

He did not answer, knowing his daughter so well, knowing she needed to expel the venom. To wash out the bitterness.

‘I should have died there. Finally, right? That’s what you’re thinking? I should have died on that worthless ball of mud.’ Lying in the moss and leaf litter, gasping, coughing out her last, feeling hot blood burble in her mouth, choking that would be terrifying but for the numbness that spread wings and filled her chest. Falling, falling, falling forever into twilit silence and darkness. Trapped for eternity in crystal, lost in the moment. A ghost of a ghost, withering away buried in loam.

‘Would they have come for us? Would you, Father? I don’t think they would have even told you. I would have just been gone and that would be that.’ She knuckled away wetness from her eyes, sighing hard, hard enough to crunch through the knot in her throat, eying the maze of tendrils that wove among the wraithbone webbing of the floor. Tiny ferns sprouted here and there, softer than a thought, unrolling fragile curls to the sun that leaked in from above. Iselyth grounded herself there, she anchored in the green, she felt the hum of quiet life. Life. _Life_.

‘Those are the risks. I wanted war. I wanted death. Oh, I got it Father, I got it in such droves I could be sick. Sick! And here I am and I want to go back. I don’t want to. I do. I don’t. I – I’m pulled in half.’

If she could love Father for one thing alone: it was for how he listened. Silently, without judgement, without reproach, simply accepting everything she could give. And oh she had given much, through the years, much, and more that she knew he must have wept over. When she strode down the length of the hall in her full armor, pennant flying over one shoulder, helmet tucked under her arm, back erect, each pace devouring meters to stand right before him. A Dire Avenger. A child of Khaine. What he’d never wanted.

Oh such a challenge, then, to come armed and arrogant like that, right to the Solstice Throne. He could have censured her; he could have disowned her just then. In an instant. No one would have blamed him. No arms ever passed the threshold of Greenhold. Not since the fall. Yet she gripped tight the hilt of long, silvered blade and stroked the warm holster wherein slumbered shuriken death.

But Father listened.

So she bulled onward.

‘There was another there. A human. A…one of their Space Marines. You know the type, Father. Too well, I think. He was – he was difficult. Arrogant and stupid and – and _willful_ and obtuse and impossible and – and – and – and!’ She growled, because Qin was there, with his back to her, his broad back like a wall as he swung his crude chainsword in looping spins, engine silent and she couldn’t look away because it was like the chamber tilted, like he stood at the bottom of a well and all flowed toward him which was ridiculous and intolerable so she forced herself to look away, to look up at Father, to stare him down as he gazed down at his daughter and she put Qin aside even as she spoke of him, she blocked him behind walls of Space Marine and Human and not Qin, _never_ Qin. Never Qin. She saw him slay a ripper, she did not see him above her. She felt his hard gauntlets as he threw her behind a tree – she did not feel the roughness of his calluses, the gentle wonder of skin on skin. She saw snarling crimson helm, not pools of umber, crinkled at the corners.

‘Laichrain told me what humans of the Imperium were like, but never in a thousand lifetimes did I expect _that_ – every word he spoke was a contradiction and you could tell him that ice was cold and fire hot and he would argue!’ She dug fingernails into the rich carpet about her, feeling the sudden snaps and trembles of roots splitting and slick sap stained her fingertips. Qin cocked his head at her and she snarled. ‘I had to work with him, Father. I had to work with him to survive and we did. Both of us and we left together and he – well, he saved me Father, he saved me and I don’t know what to do with that.’

There. She said it. Father heard it.

Qin, Qin the Space Marine, Qin the Human, Qin the Mon’keigh who sometimes was as thoughtful as wraithbone and sometimes shocked her with his complexity. Iselyth spat and her spittle hung like dew on the little ferns and buds of the living floor. Even that act of contempt is tempered here – the essence of Greenhold oppressive and suffocating. Be not forlorn, it whispered. You are home.

Home.

_Home._

Qin saved her because she was losing control. Every rattle of the waystones at her hip drove her to new heights of fury, pushed her deeper into her Mask, buried her under cresting waves of blood and acid hate. The universe narrowed to two points: her and the Devourer. Iselyth and the beasts. Eroding one until it they would all be monsters, driven to slaughter. Her throat ached, iron filling her mouth as she panted, gasped, knocked out of her Mask by the shock of the Space Marine. How it collapsed around her, the tide of crimson receding and leaving her high and dry, naked and raw on the shore of her own sanity, pulling herself back together, surrounded by an abattoir of corpses and smeared in gore.

And she was back in Greenhold, staring at the spatter of her venom across the tile. Her shoulders ached. Her eyes burned and she would not weep. She would not. She met her father’s gaze, kneeling child to seated patriatch.

‘I don’t know if I would have left that world as myself. Not without him. Master Ataenith would have been disappointed.’ She mused for a moment, then laughed, manic. ‘But not surprised, I think.’ On her right palm, no larger than her thumbnail, the shiny patch of skin in the shape of a two headed bird itched. It never hurt, not once, but sometimes it tingled beneath the skin. ‘I brought him back, you know. Master Ataenith. Autarch Maech Nohrn said they returned his waystone, set into new armor. They said the spirits are diminished but still strong. Ataenith will walk again. It won’t be _my_ Ataenith.’ She could feel her father’s frown.

A Dire Avenger peers down at her. He is Asurmen cast in living wraithbone. He is draped in chains of hammered bronze, he drips totems and woven icons. The Knot repeats and repeats itself, wrapping and binding his limbs, long and lithe and limber. His face is etched of marble, his eyes so clear, so blue – it is as if the achingly perfect sky of the Shrine shines through his face. She sees the set of his jaw, the tiniest wrinkle pulling one corner of his mouth in consideration. A frown creases his flawless forehead. The touch of his hand to her back, gently, directing, is electric.

‘Yes, yes, yes. I know. He was never ‘my’ Ataenith. He was an exarch. I know.’ But she felt his hands on hers, his chest pressed to her back as he guided her through a particularly complex form, guiding her hands on her blade. ‘I don’t know what I want. If that Space Marine hadn’t been there – I wonder if it might have been better. What do I have? What do we have?’ Iselyth cast around the hall, empty save her and her father. Empty when it should never have been. Empty and full of life. Irony personified. Merciless in potential. Brutal in bloom. ‘Maybe that’s how it should be. Should’ve been. Could be. He calls to me, Father. I hear him at night. When I dream. _‘Be one with me,_ ’ he says, in the way he never would in life. ‘ _Be one with me_ ’, and all I see is blood.’ She looked away, unable to hold her father’s gaze.

‘Exarch. I swore I never would. I’d never fall that far. I have daemons. We all do. I would burn them out and move on. Now my shrine is gone, Father, now my mentor is dead and I am all that’s left.’

Iselyth was torn between tears and laughter, both bubbling beneath the surface, each a doorway to inconsolable hysteria. She teetered on the edge, riding the cusp of madness like a Warp Spider rides the webway. Iselyth hiccupped, shivering in the springtime warmth.

‘And what do you say, Father? What advice do you offer your daughter? Your son is gone, raiding his way across the stars in refusal of his responsibilities. I came back. I always come back. And what do you have for me?’ She spat, unseemly, impolite but she was past caring, past propriety. ‘Here I am: the prodigal daughter. No warnings? No assurance?’ She was on her feet in a flash, pacing, pacing before the throne, glaring daggers at her father.

The wraith construct was silent, still, entwined with vines and creepers, half-buried by the verdant greenery that infested the living throne. No light or warmth glowed from the domed head, as hollow and empty as the hall. Anchor points for pennants were bare and empty, green stains of chlorophyll and dark streaks of sap marring the deep crimson limbs and white-gold armor plates. Both hands clasped the quillons of _Cor Chaladhol_ , the tip of the enormous ghostblade planted deep in the dais between its feet.

The sword drew her focus, glowing with an icy inner light, untouched by all the blooms and fronds of the flora about it. It stood aloof and separate, the aura of frigidity maintaining a circle of bare wraithbone around its embedded tip. At the wrists of the wraithlord the vines ceased, unwilling to edge too closely to such a hole in the world.

Here was her father’s body but his mind was long gone. She could not even feel him, not here, not now. Far, far deep into sleep he still remained in the gloaming caverns beneath Greenhold where the living dare not tread.

‘I know what you would say. Though you aren’t here to speak it.’ She stepped up, reaching out to brush fingertips across Cor Chaladhol, wincing and gasping as, like always, the bitter cold of it snapped at her digits. Iselyth looked down at the rime that coated her fingertips, even as it melted away in the springtime warmth of Greenhold. Melted away, and was gone.

* * *

Later Iselyth sits with her thighs astraddle her lover’s shoulders. He is an artist, and he imbues that passion into every aspect of life. He teases her and works her, his nose tickling as his lips play, as his tongue tastes and wanders, as his dexterous fingers ply and hint and chase ghosts of fullness and satisfaction as she drifts. He keeps her on the cusp and she can feel his smile against her inner thigh as he plants soft kisses along the tender skin, distracting her away from her hollow, hungry sex before he slides a slender finger inside, smooth as can be, so sudden and soft for a moment she can’t help but clench and bear down to feel him better, anything to take the edge off before he presses down and the delicious stretch throws her head back. Long and languid he works at her as she arches into the bed, biting down on the corner of sheets that run like water to muffle pleading demands.

The bastard acts like he’s sculpting the _concept_ of an orgasm from psychoplastic, like he’s tricking into life all the nerves that are required for it, chiding and mocking her lust as foolish because, silly thing, dear thing, beautiful thing, you can’t come yet, you just simply cannot, see – she wants to howl when his mouth seals over her and his tongue pulls head-spinning suction but dammit, he can sense her, he was always sharper in the mind than she, he rides her every gasp and shudder so he knows just when to – to stop! A keen strangles in her throat because she is moments away when he stops to press wet lips to her pubis and tilt her hips to a new angle, one hand kneading the firm muscle of her rear, a deep massage that only highlights with blaring, offensive intensity just how empty she still is, how much he disappoints her –

And of course he knows that too because there’s a finger inside her and his tongue curls about her bud and laps between her lips and she shrieks and is undone, mashing his face to her with force as her thighs squeeze hard about his head, heels digging into his back because she’s greedy, she’s greedy and he’s been stingy and she will fuck his face with her hips until he cannot _breathe_ for that, until he parts from her gasping for breath and she sucks in air, sweating, boneless, nude and radiant as he looks down at her.

She’s never had much of an affinity but she can sense the smoldering sense of pride emanating off of him in waves.

‘Pride,’ she pants, ‘isn’t attractive.’

He slides onto the sheets beside her, forming his body against her, pulling her against him. He is hard and slick against her side, but he makes no demands of her, content to walk fingers along her ribs and brush elegant digits down her thigh.

‘I’d make a piece off of this, you know.’ He mutters, drawing a fingertip through a streak of sweat. ‘Of you, just now, like this. No better image of Isha would grace any craftworld when I was through.’

She giggles and pushes at him.

‘Flattery _is_ attractive, though.’

‘Is it?’ He leaned over her, waggling his eyebrows. ‘Then I shall endeavor to continue.’ Moments pass until she grows thirsty and rises, pulling up a long-discarded robe to array about her shoulders. He watches with a pout pulling at his sculptural features.

‘I need to study my subjects, you know.’ Over her shoulder she favors him with a flick of her eyelashes and a hint of a smile as she searches for the half-filled carafe. The wine is sweet and light, sharp when cold and rounded when warm and she plashes a measure into a thin-stemmed glass. A breeze from the thrown-open balcony doors tousles her robe and she wanders out, hearing rustling and movement behind.

Arms slide about her waist, crossing at her navel to slip under the robe and splay warm fingers across her belly, the other to cup her still tingling sex. Iselyth leans back, resting against him.

‘Thank you,’ she mutters.

‘Why, of course. I’d be a poor friend if I could not offer some distraction.’ Toirdel’s fingertips stroke across her sleek stomach and he kisses up the column of her neck. ‘You came back from Greenhold yesterday.’

Still deliciously warm and boneless from her orgasmic high, Iselyth can keep the memory at arm’s length.

‘I did.’ Wisely, he doesn’t press the subject.

‘I’m glad. I missed you. I’d hoped to see you, when…well.’ When you came back, she fills in silently, a pang of regret pulling at her. He’d thought her dead, and she – she’d not thought of him at all. That’s unfair, whispered a voice, you were up to your neck in tyranids. Did you think often of Father either? Or Laichrain? Your own brother? Your attention was elsewhere, as it needed be. As it had to be, to live.

‘I missed you as well,’ she lied, because she should have. His hand slides up her stomach, cupping under her breast then up to her chin to turn and capture her lips with his own and she sighs into him, opening her mouth and accepting, tasting the wine on his tongue, the sweetness and warmth of him.

She opens to him later too, as they move together, rocking and riding.

She looks down at Toirdel, at his trim body beneath hers, down to where their bodies meet and she engulfs him, past her breasts and then back up to his face. There is wonder there, an awe that makes him tender and soft, makes him stroke along her breast and hip.

And she is hating herself.

He is beautiful. He is kind, so kind. He leans over her, supporting his weight and she watches the tiniest shifts of muscle along his jaw and temple as he strokes within her, matching to her deepest sighs and hunting for what he knows she liked best. His eyebrows grow taut, his every motion sinuous, a nonstop assault on her senses, a barrage of crackled nerves as he pushes deep into her and takes the tender point of her breast into the heat of his mouth and slides fingers up her spine and rubs circles just above her tailbone – because he knows her, and she knows him, and he devotes his attention to reading her, examining her like one of his projects, for each stroke of the chisel in impeccable marble to be exact, for each arc of the brush to be precise, for each press of the wraithbone to be some part of a greater whole.

But even when she grinds against him (which he matches perfectly) and nips teeth along his jaw and digs fingers into his trim back, even as Iselyth curls her toes as another orgasm pinches her eyes shut and shatters electricity down her limbs in little shivers, she is hating herself.

When he sleeps, arrayed half-beneath coverlets like a pose in a portraiture study, she regards him with critical eye from a low chair. Her robe dangles from her shoulders, left to fall open as she sips only clear water.

Muscles clench and unclench in her jaw, lips drawn tight. Toirdel is her friend – her good friend, her lover and confidante. He knew her secrets and she his. He knew of Ataenith.

She’d never felt so quietly unfilled after a night of passion with Toirdel before.

She couldn’t put aside the feeling as he moved in her, under her, above her, like it was a part. A play. He knew everything about her like it was rehearsed. His remarks earlier sunk into her belly like an undigested meal and stayed there, unwelcome. It wasn’t the first time he’d joked about his craft after sex. It used to be a thing. A clever little byplay, simple pillow talk. But it lodged in her focus and she couldn’t put it aside. He studied her like a painting, like a sculpture. They made love like each was expecting the next act and preparing for it. And for all the lighthearted humor, she had seen glimpses of an woman she knew in some of his works.

The cant of the head in an abstract tangle of eldar forms – a curve of hip in a suggestive and bawdy lithopane of Lileath.

It never bothered her before. Flattery, it was, even, if she considered it.

Toirdel never failed to satisfy her, and his words had always been fair.

But she remembers another time. She remembers a dank cellar, half-lit. She remembers riding the heady edge of exhaustion and hunger, struck across the face by unexpected arousal and frustration, she remembers the way her heart hurt it had hammered so hard as she bared herself there. She remembers a vast weight and power underneath her, the way she felt, radiant and glorious, never as wanton or as beautiful as she had before, as powerful as she did that night.

The way the moment froze, the future dropped away, the present growing and growing until all she could conceive of was the infinite _now_ , the feeling when he spun her around and pinned her to the floor, the intensity, the ferocity, the _focus_. How his eyes never left hers. Every drip of sweat that dropped, sharp and sour to stain her body.

She uncrosses and recrosses her legs, running lost in memory.

The way everything blurred, the way he surrounded her in all ways, filling her up and trapping her beneath him, so vulnerable, so fragile. How his cock and his hands and his mouth and his eyes had pinned her through, nailed her clean to the floor and the now, the moment, every second, gasping for breath to survive just one more thrust, just one more thrust. How her body burned, every inch, strung out and humming, drawn taut around a feeling she couldn’t contain.

Never as vulnerable, as trapped, as naked as she was in that moment.

Never as alive.

Never as _alive_.

Never as unafraid.

She doesn’t remember any fear. Pain – yes, a bit of it. He was large and forceful and clumsy and that night there had been a greater mixture of pain to the pleasure than she had ever been used to before, but even that – even that! It wasn’t perfect, it wasn’t exact, it was – it was more than she bargained for, more than she expected; it was nothing like she asked but everything she wanted.

Every time he plunged within her she felt his strength, the potential, how lost he was, how swept up in the moment. Strength enough to tear her in two. Strength that was _made_ to do such things.

Never feared it. Not even for a second.

And then after. When she asked, and he held her.

Iselyth surges to her feet, downing the rest of the chalice in a single, messy gulp. Chill water spills past her chin, spattering down her chest and she pulls her robe tight, spinning away and throwing open the doors to the balcony, leaving her lover lost in his slumber.

The dome falls out and away, far livelier, far more cosmopolitan than Greenhold. Just as verdant, just as full of life, of trees that scraped at the lost ceiling far above, interwoven with spires and grand malls. She clenches the railing, worked to resemble garlands of thin leaves until her fingers ache. The night cycle is deep, though the warm lamps along boulevards and promenades and from spires banish true dark.

Khaine’s teeth. The ghost of hands run down her arms, and they are not an eldar’s.

Khaine’s teeth.

Still wearing only a robe, she scales the railing and slips over the side.

* * *

He settles onto the curved wraithbone chaise next to her, close enough she can feel the warmth beating off his skin. Wordless, Toirdel offers her a wrapped bundle and she takes it, smelling the herb and spice, the rounded nose of sainn-honey. The bread is unleavened, sprinkled with astringent herbs atop it, still warm from the ovens and sweetly sour. She hadn’t realized her hunger until her stomach snarls with ferocity somewhere through the third bite. Steam warms her face as she breaks off chunks with careful fingers.

Toirdel grins.

She dips a shoulder, a wave of her fingers – abashed gratitude. He flicks it away.

‘You’d do the same for me,’ he says, and in so proving he thinks far higher of her than she. Iselyth munches in silence, the soft mouthfuls threatening to stir memories back to the fore but she focuses instead of everything else – the chill and nip of the air, numbing her nose, the tips of her ears, chilling her cheeks to rose-kissed warmth. The pliant smoothness of the wraithbone beneath her, only a thin silken robe in between. All around the plants are curled like newborn ferns, tucked up and away from the morning snap of frost, each biding their time for the coming bloom of sun and warmth of midday.

Where Greenhold was a snapshot of time, poised at the edge of raucous bloom, Dome Siod-Thhe was a celebration of the full rainbow of life. Summers crashed into winters and rolled into the briefest of springs before leaves trembled red and yellow and a thousand shades in between before renewing to the crispest of greens. A week in Siod-Thhe might be balmy and humid, the air as still as a mirror and drenched – then be followed by snowfall and ponds rimed over.

Frost dusts everything – she’d watched it spread as the hours ticked over. Somewhere along the way she regretted her choice of attire, but the idea of retracing her steps was as admitting defeat. Even as the temperature dipped below freezing and her breath hung as gauze in the air, Iselyth shrugged. Ataenith had taught them so much. How with simple focus and mnemonics she could alter her breathing, draw the faintest of power from the infinity circuit, raise her core temperature by several degrees. Slower, longer breaths to minimize the loss of heat through temperature gradients in her lungs, legs and arms crossed to hug heat closer.

She rode out the frosty morning in a stupor, draped in thoughts and a mantle of dewy flakes.

‘You weren’t there when I woke up.’

Iselyth rolls her shoulders. Toirdel brings up a leg, shifting to face her from the foot of the chaise. The clearing, set a few paces from a meandering path, is private. Hedges and thornbushes rise taller than Wraithlords all around them and only a peek of the main path is revealed. And at this time of day, few eldar would be out in the green. Concern is writ across his beautiful face, feathered brows creased and tugged close.

‘Isse, talk to me.’

 _Isse_.

Twice in two days.

She grinds her teeth, swallowing the last of the bread and twists the paper wrapping between her hands. The diminutive isn’t unwelcome, but unlooked for. Her brother started calling her that, back when she still had scraped knees and stood no higher than her mother’s waist. It had stuck amongst close family and the few close friends that kept by. Toirdel was one. Lachrainn another.

‘What’s there to say?’

‘Why did you leave? It’s cold out. A quick winter started tonight. Unless you make a habit of freezing.’ She held up both hands, leaving the crumpled wrapping in her lap. Wiggled her fingers.

‘Look. Plenty warm.’

‘Isse.’

She glances away, studies the drip of tiny icicles from thorns as long as her first finger-joint. Shrugs.

‘I was restless.’ Toirdel’s face falls, and he casts his eyes down. He’ll take it personally. He wanted to help. Iselyth, here, not warm and comfortable in bed – that was a failure. That wasn’t help.

‘It’s not your fault,’ she tries, but Toirdel has already taken the regretful barb. ‘Really. I’ve been restless. That’s why I went h- why I went to Greenhold. I haven’t stayed in one place for more than a few days since I got back, you know.’ She can see he understands her, really, he gets it, but it doesn’t change that he couldn’t help her.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says. Iselyth can’t help but reach out, take his hand in hers, surprised at how cold it is in comparison. An artist’s hands. Never to take a life in anger, never to need to know how to survive when worlds themselves wish you dead. She clasps with both hands, willing some of her warmth to him. If she cannot offer it of the soul, at least a bit can be spared of the flesh. ‘Don’t be,’ she murmurs to him, ‘because then I’ll be sorry.’ Toirdel tries to pull her closer, but she is unmoving. ‘It’s-‘

‘Isse, you can’t keep living in the middle like this.’ She doesn’t want to hear this. Really, really doesn’t. ‘It’s tearing you in half. I’m watching it.’

‘I’m fine,’ she mutters, but the words are as thin as the mist of her breath.

‘Fine? Why are you out here? Don’t tell me you wanted a stroll. Isse, look at me. Look at me, please?’

The plea is too much and she forces herself to meet his gaze. She’ll look him in the eyes, but she keeps iron bars around her mind. No doubt he’ll feel that, but her emotions – there’s nothing Iselyth can trust right now.

‘You could step aside. Stop being torn in half. I know your family. It wouldn’t be ruin. It wouldn’t. Your brother-‘

‘Walked away! He quit. Things got a little too hard for him so he ran off to play pirate.’

‘Isse, that’s unfair.’

‘That’s the truth, Toirdel. The truth. He _left_.’ Toirdel’s look is one of sorrow and she hates it, because it’s about her. For her. She doesn’t need it. What does it help? What’s his sadness going to do?

‘So it’s all on me.’

‘It doesn’t have to be.’

Iselyth laughs, throwing back her head, hair rippling, full-throated and rude.

‘It isn’t? I’m my father’s daughter. Second in line. So big brother leaves and now what, me too? What al legacy for Cucolollein. His line broken because of the gutlessness of his ancestors. And my father. My mother. What children they raised.’

‘Your mother,’ Toirdel says, with tangible reproach, ‘would want you to be happy.’

‘My mother _wants_ nothing.’ She spits, pulling her hands away from his, bundling them into hard fists in her lap. ‘I went to talk to Father. Did you know he didn’t bother to speak back? It was silly. Childish, right? Of course he wouldn’t. I’m not a spiritseer. Silly me. Silly Iselyth. Your dad is dead and his soul sleeps. Silly to think his only daughter would be enough to interest him.’ She bites back tears, as much at her words as the twisting shame of admitting as much out loud.

Toirdel’s next words are worse.

‘Albhain wouldn’t mind-‘

At first she is numb, numb because of the very thought of it. Numb because her breath was stolen and the little girl deep inside her looks up and thinks ‘ _Father?’_ and she hates it, the weakness, the humiliation, she is numb because she actually, _actually_ for a moment considered it.

Iselyth covers this with anger.

‘You’d have me wake him, wake a _wraithlord_ , so that the ghost of my father can pat his daughter on the head?’ She flicks her hand in outright disgust and Toirdel recoils, but she can’t stop. ‘Yes, let us pull his soul from twilight and rest so that he can see firsthand the death of his line. That – yes, that – that is – ‘ She does not realize she is crying until frigid air chills the salt on her cheek.

Toirdel reaches his hands for her but she is up and away, standing on bare feet on rimed wraithbone.

‘I’m sorry. Toirdel. No. That was – you were kind. I’m sorry. I –‘ Iselyth flees, her friend and lover left behind.

* * *

It’s with false cheer they sit with Lachrainn. A difference in trio could scarcely be greater imagined. Iselyth sits crosslegged, a simple robe in steel-grey and pale blue about her shoulders, belted at her waist. Her hair is loose, wavy and tumbling over her shoulders, as black as it was at birth. Thin slippers dangle from her feet. It felt strange to wear a loose robe and skirt, drifting around her body with the slightest caress and touch on her skin. No more tight, clinging bodysuit and ruined armor, yet she felt almost vulnerable now without. Fragile.

Curious how much the world can change in but months, yet sometimes linger on for decades.

Toirdel is bare-chested beneath an open tunic cinched with a broad wrap of azure woven with gold, enjoying the balmy air after the short winter. He has painted his chest, delicate and intricate whorls of blue and pale purple across his abdominals and up to his pectorals, a starburst radiating from one nipple. His hair is as dark as wine today, rippling with highlights of purple and blue as the light catches it. The picture of confident artistry.

But Laichrainn.

The corsair captain has drawn more stares than is seemly. Even in her current drifting state, Iselyth couldn’t deny the happy little burst of warmth in her stomach when she saw her old friend again.

The corsair swept out of the flow of foot traffic like a ship of the lesser races breaking the empyrean: a burst of energy and attention that pulled focus from all around.

Now she lounged, long limbs draped and dangling in just the right ways to accentuate her lithe and towering figure. Laichrainn was already tall for an eldar and arranged as she was in her lounge, her legs seemed to flow for miles. She dangled an elaborate flask of crystal and sculpted wraithbone off one finger, occasionally jostling the amber liquid within. Against the more muted and measured denizens of the craftworld, Laichrainn is a tropical bird. Her hair is a shock of bright white, wound into a complex braid that swings as low as her waist, veined with fluorescent red. Half her head is shaved to the scalp, tattooed there with pale blue designs and runes. Her lips are cherry, glistening, as if coated in blood. The symbol of the craftworld encircles both eyes as a tattoo in matching crimson, as if she wept tears of vitae down alabaster cheeks. Piercings in silver and platinum poke through her lip and cheek, both ears sheathed in a rippling framing of liquid metal.

Her dress is what has attracted the most glances, from male and female alike. Her jacket plunges low and unbuttoned, tails sweeping behind her. A hundred buckles dangle loosely along one seam, yet only a handful are clasped low at her navel. Underneath the corsair wears nothing at all. How she has managed to avoid exposing herself is beyond Iselyth – always the coat lies just right, dangling in just the right way and fitted just so to preserve a consideration of modesty, though the vast expanse of the corsair’s stomach and cleavage pays lie to that concept. Her trousers hang low on shapely hips, as tight as skin, a dozen knives strapped up her left thigh. It is not that weapons are disallowed, per se, but more that there is never a need for them. Laichrainn has used one already to spear a morsel, smirking and flicking the finger-length blade between nimble digits.

Iselyth was glad to see her. Though her ensemble was violent and loud, demanding attention, though Laichrainn clearly enjoyed every glance Toirdel sent her way and those of others, there was a comfort in that. In continuity. This was the Laichrainn Iselyth knew best. Always pushing boundaries, always poking just a little too far, always on the careful side of irreverent. She remembers the conspiratorial smiles she and Toirdel had shared when Laichrainn went missing for weeks, only to turn up aboard a corsair ship out of Saim-Hann. Laichrainn alone had hugged Iselyth tight and firm before she left for the Shrine, planting a quick kiss on both cheeks.

‘Go on then, dear one. Let it out. Let it all out.’ Toirdel had tried to talk her out of it. Laichrainn understood.

So the captainess teasingly describing her coat as a ‘lovely find from Comorragh’ and the resultant suppressed cough from Toirdel merely made Iselyth smile, trying to focus on the moment, to keep the melancholy at bay.

An arrangement of savory tidbits and sweet cakes lay on the low table between the three, sampled and nibbled here and there. Laichrainn leaned forward, snagging a pastry between two nimble fingers.

‘I’ve heard from _somewhere_ , dear Lytha, that you have quite a story.’

Iselyth takes a careful sip of her spiced wine.

‘Mm?’

‘I’ve heard, and I was quite taken by this, mind you, that you, dear one, slew a Deathleaper in single combat. And that you’ve got the beast’s own claw to prove it.’

Ah.

‘I had help,’ she avers, avoiding looking at Toirdel as she says it. Qin, before her, an expression she’d never seen before suddenly spreading across his face. The way his brows draw close, his mouth drops open, the widening of his mouth – if she did not know better, she might term it ‘concern’. The room spinning, the hard _crack_ of stone against her helmet, iron in her mouth.

Iselyth blinks and Laichrainn’s grin widens. Predatory, white teeth shining. And one gold, hooked and long.

‘Oh, you must tell us.’ On the other hand, this is the Laichrainn Iselyth knows best.

Obligingly, Iselyth begins her tale.

…

‘And you still have it?’ Iselyth nods with a small smile. The story unfolded well, and she found herself using a few of Toirdel’s turns of phrase as she described the long hunt in the darkness beneath the chapel. Of Qin she spoke little, cursorily, referring to him as ‘the Space Marine’ or the ‘human’. Laichrainn seemed not to notice the care with which Iselyth trod about her companion, nor did Toirdel. It was not until she was standing, striking a pose as she described trying to strike at the elusive tyranid that she realized she was, well, not unhappy.

Letting the memories come and flow over her, reliving the moment, banished the weight and melancholy that had chased her.

She packaged that thought away to deal with later.

‘You’ll have to show it to me. A fine trophy. A fine trophy! I’ve not seen the like before, you know.’ Iselyth smiles, though it does not reach her eyes.

‘It’s with what remains of my armor. Still in –‘ her voice hitched a moment. ‘Still in the shrine.’

Laichrainn’s mirthful face grows more serious, and she leans over, patting Iselyth’s thigh. Idly, Iselyth wonders how her friend’s breasts do not spill out.

‘I was very sorry to hear about what happened. You spoke only the best of Ataenith.’

‘Thank you,’ Iselyth says, reflexively, dodging that open sore and continuing along as before. ‘I never knew how intelligent one of the devourers could be. To hunt us, all that time! Such a grudge.’

Toirdel takes a sip, and waves his hand.

‘I’d be displeased too if someone stole my arm.’ Laichrainn laughs.

‘We must spar at some point, dear. I met with a captain from Saim-Hann. You wouldn’t believe what they call fencing! It’s like lightning, like their feet never touch the ground. You’d think they wouldn’t know which end of a sword pokes holes, so enthralled they are with their jetbikes, but there it is.’

The conversation wanders on, into Laichrainn’s travels and exploits. The corsair never has a lack of tales to tell and stories to spin, even if surely half must at least be embellished greatly. She lets her friend dominate the conversation, content to sit back and listen. Toirdel seems as into it as she and the awkwardness of the past week or so seems tucked aside for the day.

Neither had broached what happened that other morning. Iselyth’s ears still burned in shame when she thought about what she’d said aloud and Toirdel seemed more than happy to pretend as if it never occurred. They’d not spent the night together again, though, truth be told, Iselyth hadn’t felt the urge. Even Laichrainn and her ridiculous outfit failed to spark more than amusement from her – not that Iselyth had ever been overly attracted to her own sex, but Laichrainn’s classic innuendo and teasing at least used to usually encourage the same playfulness in her.

Laichrainn straightens up, her mien growing serious.

‘Lytha, dear. How are you?’

The suddenness of the question and directness disarms Iselyth for a moment. She massages her thigh a moment, gathering her thoughts and taking a breath.

‘Rather full, I think.’ The table is an array of crumbs and half-empty glasses. The attempt at humor trips over its own feet.

‘I mean it. It has been lovely catching up with both you-‘ Laichrainn winks at Toirdel, but is serious again in a heartbeat ‘but _how are you_?’

She chews on her lower lip.

‘Fine. Fine enough. How else could I be?’ Iselyth shrugs, turning her head fractionally: dismissal, but grateful. ‘Thank you for asking. Really. But – I’ll be okay.’

The corsair smiles, soft, caring, and Iselyth’s heart jumps. ‘I love you, Lytha. You know that. If you ever need anything – I’m here. Anything at all.’

Toirdel adds his own voice, echoing her sentiment and Iselyth swallows the knot in her throat. The familiar closeness of family. Warmth. The ache is physical as both her closest friends smile at her, and neither are they kin.

‘Thank you. Both of you. I’ll be okay.’

She says the words with much more conviction than she feels. Laichrainn studies her a moment longer and Iselyth feels momentarily like a piece of hung meat. Then the corsair shrugs and her teeth flash again. Gold, catching the light. When she is mischievous, the artificial fang tugs sharp at her lower lip.

‘Speaking of the devourer – did I ever tell you of the trained carnifex I once saw? Yes! A real carnifex!’

...

Later Lachrainn takes Iselyth aside, her long fingers weaving into the shorter eldar's locks as she presses forehead to forehead. Bright eyes inches away search her own. Iselyth wants to look away, fearful of what is within her windows, but Laichrainn will not relent.

'Come along,' the corsair murmurs.

'What?'

'Come along, Lytha. On my ship. Just for a while. Get away from everything. From the craftworld. From memories, from - from it all. You don't have to stay. You don't even have to do anything. Just come along.'

She splays her hands against her friend's chest, feeling the warmth of her skin, the beat of her heart, but Iselyth does not push away.

'I can't-'

'Why not?'

'...' The silence is unfilled, and Laichrainn pulls her closer, tucking the crown of Iselyth’s head beneath her slender jaw. Hugs Iselyth to her chest, stroking her hair. She holds back tears, held by another, by a woman, taller than she, because - _mother_ \- and she digs fingers into the back of Laichrainn's coat.

'Come on Lytha. Come on. Get away from this. Your head can't empty here. It’s too loud. I know.'

She tries to speak, mouths around air, swallows, tries again.

'I can't keep leaving.'

'I didn't say leave. I said take a break. The next run is short. A few turnings. If even. You'll be back then. You need space. Both kinds.'

Iselyth shivers, tightening her hug briefly before stepping back quickly, breaking the embrace. Laichrainn smiles gently down at her, cocking her head.

'Think about it, at least. Think about it. I leave in two cycles. You know where to find me.'

When the slender frigate _Kestrel Sung_ arcs wide and sleek from the embrace of the craftworld, sinking into the yawning embrace of the webway, Iselyth is watching from the panes of the broad windows.

She is watching the craftworld, again, recede and vanish.

* * *

_Elsewhere_

Tukayar bowed low, but precisely low enough as was demanded by tradition and respect.

Qin would've done no differently. The past weeks on Choroct had been difficult. Tukayar and Zhigua had obviously become accustomed to each other. Zhigua had been on the world for more than three decades, tending to the small gene-vault kept in the fortress. Tukayar had brought two training squads only days before the 'loss' of the Host over Incandry's Rest. It was to be the beginning of the long ascension process as Tukayar trained them all in the steppes and forests and shaped them into pliable warriors.

But it all had gone awry. The neophytes had been rushed into their final implantations, being given their Black Carapace instead of earning it. Many had died.

Again - Qin would've done no differently.

But at that, the two Marines had sort of...stopped. Tukayar still ran hunts with handfuls of the neophytes. There were still instructions of void-warfare, for service aboard ships that did not exist anymore. Zhigua went through the motions, maintaining the small apothecarion.

And it seemed, had he not arrived when he did, they simply would have continued doing so until the stars ceased their spin. Now that - that Qin would have done differently.

And was attempting to.

'Khan,' Tukayar said, straightening up, gaze fixing itself somewhere past Qin's left shoulder.

'Tukayar. You've submitted a request to use the Thunderhawk.'

'I did, Khan. There is a mediation to be made between two tribes in the Farros Divide. They requested Host advisors. The neophytes -'

'The neophytes need to remain here, arbana.'

'If I might ask why, my Khan?'

Qin rose from the low couch, straightening his robe and putting aside a dataslate. 'Since you asked and since I would have soon enough explained to you all, very well. I will inform Zhigua later. Tukayar, what do we have here, in the fastness?'

'Thirteen Astartes, my Khan.'

'Thirteen. And the gene-seed banks?'

'Zhigua tells me there is a viable dozen, perhaps.'

'Perhaps. The Argent Lance was deemed safer for the precious reserves. How ironic.' Qin tapped the dataslate lying beside him on a low table. 'Perhaps a dozen more neophytes might be elevated. Assuming no complications. Where does that leave the Host?'

Tukayar grimaced, recognizing the well-trod and worn path this conversation was heading. Nothing that hadn’t already been trod a dozen times, always broached by Qin, always pursued by Qin, as if Tukayar and Zhigua had not the stomach or even the mind to consider it. As if reality could be denied by simple habit and routine, as if this cloistered corner of the galaxy could capture in amber what was lost.

'Less than a demicompany, my Khan.'

'Far less.'

'Far less,' Tukayar agreed. 'But Mars-'

'Mars is on the other side of the Great Rift. Mars lays a galactic radius away. Mars...cannot help us.'

'With twenty men we could petition for a reserve. The Host always paid their tithe - with Martian aid our Chapter-'

'Tukayar. We cannot even speak with Terra. We can barely understand the astropathic prayers from just across the Rift.'

'There are rumors the warp calms.' Qin shook his head.

'There have been those rumors since the night the heavens split in two. No. But we have a choice, arbana. We have thirteen Astartes here. Now.' Qin leaned closer. 'Twenty-six geneseed.'

Tukayar visibly recoiled. 'My Khan! You cannot suggest that we harvest our own progenoids?' Qin spread his arms, taking in the room, exposing his chest, as if he could feel the lumps of gene-dense flesh within.

The idea had struck him a while ago, even before he arrived here, on Choroct. If the Host was presumed lost, all hands, if he was the last – did he not, in the end, hold the potential for two more to be raised? Perhaps that would be his legacy, he’d mused, thoughts dark and bloody in the days after the eldar left. He would serve until death, and from his death might come the chance for renewal. But who would save his precious progenoids? Would they not rot with his corpse wherever he fell, unremembered, uncared for?

But, and he recoiled from the thought even as it formed, _but_ –

The trace of the blunt back of his combat blade across his bare pectoral was cold and hard. The dense flesh resisted even the fractal-sharpened edge. So much of an Astartes was designed to be lost. Had he not been punctured clean through a lung? Had he not once felt the shudder of a heart grow still, spreading a sucking ache through his body even as he fought on with his brothers? He could live without one of his hearts. Without two of his lungs. Without much of his body, in fact. The venerable dreadnoughts (and for not the first time did he blanch and grow still at the realization that the Host’s cadre of ancients was gone, for the death of his Chapter never seemed to cease in revealing it’s horror), the dreadnoughts proved that the body of an Astartes was, as it should be, a masterpiece of creation.

So, then, could he not obviously live without his progenoids? His very gene-seed? The idea sat ill, wrong-shaped and offensive. It was just… _wrong!_ The more he thought of it the more his stomach turned, the more he clenched tight the hilt of his knife.

Wrong wrong _wrong wrong WRONG!_

Qin came back to the thought a while later. Again he flinched away from the image of digging in his chest, levering out the gene-rich clumps of meat. Reflexive. Instinctive.

Instinctive.

The feeling grit his teeth, drew a grimace across his brow and he pushed back. The loss of his progenoids would not kill him. His gene-seed bore no part in the function of his transhuman body. Their absence would not diminish him nor decrease his efficacy. It was no affront! No insult!

This feeling was not new.

Qin stood before a floor length mirror, in the ablutorium of the _Temptor._ He is naked, the shining ports of his interface sockets stark against his tanned skin. The fading wound at his breast is still angry yellow and blue beneath the skin, puckered and red. Gently he ran calloused fingers across his neck, his chest. The thought of marring his own body, of clashing with the Emperor’s design – but it wasn’t. It was not. He was preserving the Emperor’s design. He was honoring it. He was perverting it. The geneseed passed on in death. Not in life. Never in life. But why? For what reason? A Chapter could replace a thousand losses without need for Mars. Restore their sacred strength in a trice.

It was _wrong_. He felt it in his gut. Deep in his gut, like he knew his name and like he knew that Mankind was righteous. Wrong.

Like how the xeno was to be hated. Mistrusted. Condemned. Killed.

On the other side, he mused, it was easier. Easier to see the mines seeded through his subconscious, the memes engrained decades prior. He’d never questioned them before, never noticed.

Qin looks down at his palms. He’d held an eldar with them. Palmed her breasts, stroked her hip, drawn her to him in carnal communion. He’d used those hands to save her life. Ten times, twenty times, more. In that he knew that he had been _wrong_ once. The xeno were dangerous. Duplicitous, likely, sure. Focused on their own survival, their own goals. But the film had been torn from his eyes. Do not trust the xeno. Do not let down one’s guard. But there are exceptions.

In one swoop, the absolute certainty of his life had been…adjusted. Things that he once believed with utter, absolute certainty, a certainty like that of the knowledge of gravity and light had been torn down.

The inviolability of the Host. The malice of the xeno.

And now. Now his deep-spun indoctrination wanted him to dismiss out of hand what might be the only chance, the _only_ chance, to save his Chapter.

Qin blinked, and fixed Zhigua with his gaze. It took weeks for him to believe himself. To convince others?

‘Should we not? We do not need the geneseed to live. Twenty-six, Tukayar. If Zhigua is able to culture even enough to elevate fifteen Neophytes, we will have doubled our numbers. And from those fifteen - thirty. And from those thirty, sixty - more than a Company's worth, all told.'

'It is proscribed!'

'Many things are. All for good reason. Is the death of our Chapter a good reason?' Tukayar straightened; face tense, struggling to remain calm. Qin felt for his brother – he knew too well the feeling, the churning knowledge that this. Is. Wrong.

'If that is to be our fate, then yes, my Khan, it is honorable for the Host to pass on. To hold true.' Qin sighed, expecting nothing less. Qin of only a year ago would have had no different a reaction.

'And leave our oaths unfulfilled. Our duty undone.'

'Only in death does duty end-'

'And we are not dead! That is a _lie_ , sergeant. The Argent Lance is gone. Lord Atobai sits beside the Emperor. Is the duty of the Host fulfilled? Can we lay down our arms?'

'When our deaths come, yes.'

'When our deaths come. And the sector will cease to be? All the billions of souls we are sworn to guard? They will be eternally safe?'

'No...'

'A lie, Sergeant. Duty does not end in death. Death merely stops us from completing it. That is why we rely on others, on our brothers, to carry on the service beyond each of us.' He remembers his arbana, falling to the tyranid. His squad. Qin alone, bereft, clinging to duty until that duty was done. Why should they do any different, here? Now?

'You speak well, my Khan, and I see why you were seconded.' Qin inwardly winced - still the lie did not sit easily. But like so many matters of late, he thought, bitter, he judged the ends before the means. 'But even if we were to harvest our own gene-seed, Zhigua cannot do what you ask. Even the implantation of the Black Carapaces was nearly beyond him. He is not a Chief Apothecary. He cannot oversee the task that many should do. Without other apothecaries or specialists from Mars - this cannot be done.'

'Mars,' Qin said slowly, 'does not own a monopoly on expertise.' The statement hung in the air, and he waited for Tukayar to understand his meaning. When the other Marine's eyes widened in shock, Qin pressed home. 'Garrocan. Only half a sector away. The Magos Biologis of that forge-world are famed, are they not?' Tukayar was aghast, his olive complexion paling in shock.

'They are not privy to the secrets of the Adeptus Astartes! Such things are conserved for those who _must_ know, my Khan!'

'And in this situation, in this time, they _must_ know.' Qin chopped his hand through the air, a motion of finality. 'No, Tukayar, this is what will be done. We will all surrender our gene-seed. We will speak with Fabricator-General Octavisia Poly-9. We will rebuild the Host, here and now.' Tukayar fell to his knees, shaking his head.

'My Khan, my greatest apologies and sorrow, but this - this duty I cannot do. I will not do. My life is forfeit but I will not do this...this heresy!'

'Heresy, Sergeant? Heresy to try to save our Chapter?' Qin stepped back, giving the other Marine room to stand, pacing to one of the rounded windows that faced west. 'There are so many things happening, Tukayar. So many rumors. So much unknown. I've heard tell Terra herself is lost.' When Tukayar made to speak, Qin held up a hand. 'Yet the Astronomican, though dim and rare, is still sighted from time to time. Whispers reach us of a Primarch walking again. Lord Roboute Guilliman, brother to our own sire. A Primarch, Tukayar. After ten thousand years. They say a Legion rides the stars with him. Not a Chapter. A Legion. Rumors. They say the Despoiler has laid him low. They say he has ended the Despoiler's long, cursed life. They say Cadia is gone - that Cadia stands still. Rumors, Tukayar. _Rumors_.

Yet what do we know?’ Qin raised a single finger. ‘We know the Great Rift has torn the galaxy in two.’ Another finger rose. ‘We know that warp travel is almost as dangerous as it was in Old Night.’ Three fingers. ‘We know that other sectors have fallen to madness and murder. We know that ours has not. Ours. Has. Not. The Jade Host has guided it in these troubling years.' He clenched his hand into a fist. ‘We hold on, Tukayar. We hold on. Barely.’

'Then let us guide it still, my Khan. We are not even twenty, but few are greater than none. Let us wait for the storm to break.'

'The storm to break.’ Qin exhaled, shooting a glance toward the window. At night, the eye-watering sear of the Rift ripped overhead. The day was a blessing. ‘Like the Occulum Terribilis has silenced? Or the Maelstrom?' He spoke the words few would, said plain the fear all held.

'This could well be our new reality, Tukayar. The Rift may never seal. We cannot wait for others to save us. We have to save ourselves. We are Space Marines, arbana. Space Marines. The blood of the Great Khan runs in our veins. We know no fear. No loss can humble us. No wound will break us. We have to go on. We must go on. For Lord Atobai. For the Host.'

Tukayar, still kneeling, bowed his head.

'My Khan...my heart rails against this, but - my mind is unsure. Let us speak with Zhigua.'

Qin nodded. 'I could order this, as Khan. But an order is only as good as those that will follow it, yes? Let us speak to our Apothecary. Perhaps this is even all academic.'

It wasn't. He felt it. In his hearts. This was the way forward. No matter what it took.

No matter what it cost.

The Host would ride the stars again.

Qin would see it done. By hand if he had to.

By any means.

_Trust no one._


	2. An Uncommon Logic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Mechanicus world of Garrocan - ancient and secret-bound, ruled over by the eccentric Fabricator-General Origanna-Mu. The Imperial cruiser Somnus Temptor falls down-well towards the world, bearing missives and requests from the local Naval detachment and a secondary, wholly more singular cargo.

* * *

**Hope is the beginning of unhappiness.**

* * *

**MENBRECHT SMILED** and bowed.

‘Lord,’ said the armsman, the wrinkles at the edges of his eyes crinkling. Qin made the sign of the aquila to the man and inclined his own head.

‘My thanks, Major.’

‘I live to serve.’ Qin craned his neck to look up the stepped ziggurat, climbing off into the dull blue sky, smeared with fume. He squinted toward the apex of it, almost lost and made impossibly distant by the strange foreshortening that was a feature of the architecture.

‘As do we all.’ Qin left the idling Valkyrie behind, hearing the slow whine-down of its turbines as the pilot, no doubt receiving the order from the major, began the shutdown procedures. It tickled memories flash-coded into the Astartes. He found himself mentally ticking through the deactivation protocols in real-time, the old implanted memes coinciding perfectly with the machine growing ever more distant behind him. He shook himself, mentally chastening himself for the distraction.

Here he was. He was here. From orbit the world looked remarkably untouched for one claimed by the Martian priesthood. Where most were smog and pollution choked marbles hanging in the firmament, during the approach Qin could actually make out visible swathes of land, grey-green, with slate colored seas and swirls of white cloud. Only portions of the world were bruised by the imprimatur of industry. Long he studied the world as it grew before _Somnus Temptor,_ standing as still as a statue in the primary sighting observatorium. Surrounded by ancient machinery and gear for manual aiming in times of severe damage, Qin was alone, left with his thoughts. They grew just as the world grew before him, slowly blooming to eclipse all other concerns.

Thoughts. Thoughts and recriminations.

It is the unfortunate truth of regret that is blossoms in the rich soil that is hindsight, never deigning to lay down roots too soon. It is the unfortunate truth that regret cannot solve anything, yet, like a limpet, adheres to every waking thought.

He thought he knew what he was doing.

Tukayar would have come around. The arbana was hidebound but he was impressionable. It felt strange, even wrongful, to judge he who should, rightly, have been Qin’s superior in such a way. Yet it was the truth. Tukayar had been reflexive in his shock at Qin’s plan, he had argued with the expected zeal of a man whose order of the world was rarely challenged. But he had listened- and in that chink Qin had felt the potential. Tukayar was, ultimately, a follower. When Qin had claimed his false standing, when by their hands Zhigua and Tukayar had placed the ill-fitted mantle of Khan upon him, Tukayar had accepted it without argument. Surely, the arbana could have wrestled against the appointment. After all, it was to him the neophytes were most loyal. After all, it was he who had been training them these many years, and now had become, in effect, the steward of the future of the Jade Host by dint of his instruction.

But the order of the world demanded a few things. It demanded arbanas and neophytes, it demanded Wayfarers and champions, and most of all – it demanded a Khan. An arbana without his khan – a sword without a hand. The thought never crossed Tukayar’s mind to think that, perhaps, he could find himself recast in a role previously unimagined. A sword hammered to a baton of rank, perhaps.

Instead, Qin was a solution. Just as Qin had, swallowing his reservations, laid seed of his lie to achieve his own ends, he’d watched Tukayar accept without question because no matter the convenience, the incongruity – this newcomer could lift from Tukayar the burdensome questions he avoided in the deeps of night.

For Zhigua – the apothecary didn’t care. His realm was his labs and his clinic, in his tools and talents. He was beholden to the craft of flesh and gene and to whom he reported was long dead. Khan or no Khan, Zhigua’s life was unchanged.

Maybe that was what let the lie pass as truth. Maybe neither ever truly believed him. Maybe on that day, in the sun, in the crisp air of Choroct, maybe they, all three of them, made an unspoken agreement. Maybe they saw the lack of the stud on his brow and his claim of Seconding fell flat. Maybe Tukayar was just grateful to have a Khan to follow. Maybe Zhigua was content to let the outspoken newcomer feel like his voice was heard.

Maybe they could have all stayed like that. Comfortable. Certain. Secure. Endless training and exercises for Tukayar and his wards. Endless planning and fretting for Qin. Endless time passed in the sterile and chemical-starched confines of the Apothecarion for Zhigua. Perhaps.

But Qin just had to press.

He just had to go two steps too far.

Tukayar he could’ve brought around.

Zhigua had listened to his aims. He had listened, respectful in silence, as he slowly cleaned his tools.

And when Qin was done, Zhigua had shaken his head and said simply: “No.”

And that was that.

Well.

They argued. Debated. It grew heated. Tukayar offered solutions. Middle grounds. Qin accused Zhigua of cowardice. Zhigua accused him of fear. Orders were spat, bent, twisted, and cast back.

“You do not command here, Khan. These secrets are mine to keep, and mine alone.”

In transit between Choroct and the forge-world Qin wavered between irritation bordering on hatred and glum recrimination. Zhigua was shortsighted. He was scared. He was scared more than he accused Qin of being. Scared? Qin feared nothing. Nothing at all. He was _driven_ , not fearful. He could see the path forward. The possibilities opened before them. He could see the chance to snatch at, the chance to do honor to the Host. But Zhigua, he feared. He hoarded the last nuggets of gene-craft, he hoarded the remaining seeds. He lurked in his labs, hounded by the spectres of the neophytes he’d failed.

Zhigua did not see that he, alone, did the work of many, and succeeded far more than he ought have. The grizzled old veteran saw only that in many instances he had failed. The youths he had been charged to elevate had died on his table. Not all. Not even most. But many. That is what he saw. And that, Qin knew, is what he feared. He feared that failure again. He could not see the miracle for the failure. He could not see the Emperor had blessed them! He feared because as long as those precious, precious seeds remained, the Host was not truly gone.

But he was wrong. Wrong! So, so devastatingly wrong. Geneseed drifting in a chilled tank was not Astartes. It wasn’t even potential. It wasn’t even possibility. It was hollow. Hollow and empty.

Tukayar had tried to speak to Qin as he stormed from the apothecarion. The arbana had observed that, in time, the Host would be reborn. The storms would break. Mars would hear. Perhaps even the Lord Commander would come. There had been rumor of that, wasn’t there? Here on Choroct they could keep the fire of the host banked, but not extinguished. Ready for fuel to come.

But a fire banked died. Slowly, slowly, maybe. Maybe it could be fed so that it’s dimming might be missed entirely. But it would go out, the embers would cool, and all that would remain is ash. To remain on Choroct, to go through the motions – it would murder their spirits. It would break them. End them. Whatever would come out the other side would be a pale shadow of the vitality and vigor that Qin loved. That was the Host. It was life, vibrant, charged life. It was bestriding the stars, riding from battle to battle, war to war, out in the void. Freed of bonds and chain to world, going where the wind of the stars willed.

He shook aside such thoughts and examined the yawning portal before him. Cog shaped, encrusted with ornamentation. Two skitarii stood silent sentinel on either side. Neither seemed forthcoming. Nor did either seem to even notice or begrudge his presence.

The reply to his query had been clear.

An invitation, unreserved.

He went in. The ziggurat swallowed him whole.

Qin waited a long time. Such things were meaningless to a Space Marine, and he saw it for what it was. To a mortal or even an augmented dignitary, such a hollow of time would prove fertile soil for paranoia and suspicion, provide ample opportunity for confusion and irritability to seep into even the most careful of minds. To a Space Marine, it was as any other day. He was used to waiting. Most of his life was waiting. Waiting for a war, waiting for a battle, waiting for a new purpose. Endless training and preparation, all for the short weeks of brutal, thoughtless flashing warfare. Waiting a handful of hours in stoic silence for a Fabricator-General to see him? Little and less to one such as him.

The antechamber itself provided immediate distraction, if he sought it. From time to time he emerged from quiet and thoughtless meditation to examine his surroundings. Great reliefs of subtly shifting and clicking gears and cogs covered an entire Landraider sized segment of the wall before him. It seemed images emerged and vanished inside the clicking expanse as teeth aligned and cogs slipped into place, only to rotate away again. What the images were meant to be he could not say, but for a brief time he toyed with superimposing his own visions over the unknowable forms, finding familiar shapes in the mechanical chaos. Another wall was naught but crystalflex, from the very lip of the rich pile to the vaulted, painted ceilings high above.

An impressive view, he considered, looking out over the sprawl of the Mechanicus hive, over plumes of white vapor that issued from a thousand vents. Little scuttling fliers and vast tugs scudded across the powder blue sky, yet none he saw ever passed before the distant primary. Light always fell unobstructed on this, the highest and grandest tower on the world. The symbolism was obvious. Origanna-Mu stood in no shadow.

The arrival of the usher was heralded by the three-leaved door, tall enough to admit a dreadnought, folding away without even the slightest of whispers. The three-lobed iris simply melted away as if it never existed. The demure form of a woman, head bowed, hands clasped before her, remained in the vast slot of the entry. Behind her was another room bathed in cold light from the primary, filled with canisters and pillars of glass, unknown samples and specimens lazily drifting within.

This all Qin saw at a glance as the doors opened.

'Lord Astartes,' the woman said, and her voice was a surprise. Her tones were almost inhumanely rich, seeming to emerge from somewhere behind her mouth and beyond it, from lungs that could not exist within such a slender form. His reaction seemed noted as a smile grew across full lips and the woman gestured, beckoning him.

'My Lady is prepared to grant audience. Come, Lord. Come.'

He stirred from his rest, power armor humming as the increased draw upshifted his reactor cycles. One hand patted the secure ceramite case latched to one hip. Chains and talismans rattled against his plastron as he walked, an unfamiliar sound and motion in the peripherals of his eyes. Things he had not earned. Things he had stolen. The bright jade and gold sash of a Khan wound about his chest, dangling with pure white feathers along the fringe.

A badge of office earned through duplicity.

Qin swallowed a grimace, ignoring the unfamiliar colors that danced just below his view. This would all make it worthwhile. This would prove him right.

The woman guided him into the chambers, walking briskly and quickly, if unnaturally smoothly. From below the hem of her dress snaked a thin cable that wound along the floor, vanishing off he knew not where. It slithered, sleek and as tangle free as a snake, after her. She had to crane her neck to look up at him as she walked just beside.

'We are pleased you are here, Lord Astartes. Our Lady has not had communion with your Chapter in many months. She had begun to feel put out by such a snub.'

'Your Lady may be behind the times,' Qin observed. 'The Host is no more.'

'We have heard such rumors,' the handmaiden agreed, 'but here you stand.'

'I and but a few of my brothers,' Qin clarified, 'the strength of the Host was lost a year previous.'

'But here you stand,' she said again and had the audacity to reach out and pat the ceramite above his thigh. 'Thus - by observation, the Host remains. We believe what we see, Lord Astartes.'

'A foolish notion,' Qin chided. The woman shrugged.

'Do you have a name, madam?'

'I have many, though few would interest you or be of use.' Qin nodded.

'The ways of the Mechanicus are strange to outsiders.'

'No stranger than the ways of the Astartes, would you not agree?' Another stride or two bore them deeper into the Fabricator-General's sanctum, past more grand tubes of helical and flowered meat and bubbling fluid.

'That is fair. I will speak no more of it, then. Where is the Fabricator-General?' The handmaiden stopped and he continued on another few meters before turning back to face her.

Her heart shaped face smiled up at him from beneath curls the color of the grand trees of Choroct and she slowly raised both hands, palms up and flat.

'All around us, Lord. Speak, and she will hear you.'

'And how will I hear her?'

The handmaiden continued smiling.

'Ah,' said Qin, and he lowered himself to one knee. 'Lady Fabricator.'

'Do rise, Khan Nuumohk.'

He looked over the avatar with a new appreciation. There seemed not a hint of modification or machine that the adherents of the tech-cult so adored. He saw only a woman of high breed and standing, clad in a simply ornamented but richly texture formfitting dress that seemed a sheathe about her body from chin to ankle. Not out of place in any Imperial noble's palace, save -

The cable. He traced the serpentine coils of it with his eyes, where it ran off and tangled around gestational tubes and beneath banks of equipment, only to vanish finally out of sight completely.

She must have known his focus, for she turned slowly on one heel, allowing him to see every inch of her.

'We have not met, Khan Nuumohk, and I do not know your name nor do you know of me. Well met, son of the Host. I am Origanna-Mu. Mistress of this world and beyond to its holdings. Voice of Sacred Mars in this trying time and in this forgotten sector. You are _very_ welcome here.'

'You are? This vessel?' She - or it - placed hands on her breast as if in shock.

'Vessel? You wound me. Is not every part of you also 'Qin', Khan Nuumohk? Is not the meanest of toes still you? You face me as much as you stand within me. The centuries are not kind to the mortal form, and there is much knowledge that can rot away in the meat-brain. Some sacrifices sadly must be made, you understand.'

Another woman emerged from the thickets of machinery. In contrast to the first, this new arrival was taller, broader, far more curvaceous. She joined her compatriot and when next Origanna spoke, both mouths moved.

'I am a Magos biologis, Lord Khan. The apex of my kind, if I am allowed a modicum of pride. I shape the flesh. It would be so truly distasteful if I had no flesh upon which to work, would it not? To be so removed from the human condition, how could I pretend to gain greater understanding of the sacred body?'

Qin shifted, vaguely unsettled. Though he saw the cables that snaked from beneath the clothes of both women, the synchronicity of their speech reminded him of warp-touched minds, many years ago. A symphony of horrors unleashed by a daemon-force that twisted an intersystem trade vessel.

'It can be much, at times.' The taller woman strode away, vanishing as eerily as she appeared. 'Sometimes I favor the chorus. I will remain singly when we speak, if you prefer.'

'Yes, I think I do. If it is no offense.'

Origanna waved her hand. There was a scuttle and two broad couches unfolded from where they were hid, pressed tight against a wall.

‘No offense at all. Many of my subordinates register elevated adrenal stimulation in the remnants of their flesh-selves in a similar situation. Few share my vision.’ Two couches stalked close on watchwork mechanisms, one lowering down and another rising up higher.

'Take a seat, Lord Astartes.' She took her own command, lunging freely and drawing up her feet to tuck beneath her thighs. Qin uneasily allowed himself to sit, spine kept ramrod straight, uncertain of furniture that moved on its own. Though they seemed spindly and fragile, he was surprised to find it as solid as iron beneath his bulk. Origanna-Mu cantered her head to the side, peering at him. Her brows drew close, a look of confusion writing across her face, but to Qin’s eyes it felt like a theatrical performance, not a living emotion.

'I have no memory of your name, Khan Nuumohk.'

He cleared his throat, shrugging with a hopefully-not-obviously-practiced ease.

'My elevation to Seconded was recent,' he said, the lie much smoother now it had been repeated so often. 'Khan Tsenbaatar granted me that honor only three Terran years ago. A great honor. One I wish at times I had not been given, for the burden it places on me now, if I am honest.'

'Time and circumstance do work in concert to damn us, yes,' Origanna agreed. 'But we must take what the Emperor gives as it comes. A curse may shift into a blessing, if we but trust in the will of the Omnissiah. One cannot know the working of the greater machine, when we are but the smallest of cogs.'

He nodded. Faith did not sit strongly with him, at least, not blind faith. Faith in the Emperor as the great Master of Mankind, in His strength that flowed from Emperor to Primarch to Astartes - that Qin banked on every day. But faith for faith's own sake...he dismissed out of hand.

'As you say, Lady Fabricator.'

'Refer to me as Origanna when we are in private. It is more natural.'

'Very well, Origanna.'

'And I shall call you Qin. It is a short name but I enjoy the shape of it on the tongue.'

'Thank you.'

'Now - we are introduced and we are friends. Excellent! Now, then, Qin, you can speak freely. Tell me. Tell me why you have come to me. I am fascinated. So rarely do I entertain a visitor from the honored Adeptus Astartes, and less so in this evil time. Nor one who comes to beg a boon, yet offers a price yet unrevealed!’

Qin took a moment, hoping to appear contemplative rather than indecisive.

‘You have heard, specifically, of what befell my brothers?’

‘Oh, of course. A terrible thing. So much waste. We mourned here, you know. Thirty days and thirty nights. Dimmed the whole manufactorum.’ He was taken aback. So wrapped up he had been in his own thoughts and feelings of loss, he had not truly considered the impact it might have on the common populace. The mortal populace. Not beyond that of the practical, of the loss of critical naval and military strength.

‘You honor us.’

‘Good Khan, you honor us all as well. It was the least we could do, and there has always been friendship between Choroct and Garrocan. Many of my magos logged grief and disappointment in never being able to interface with the techmarines of your Chapter again. Yes, Qin, I have long heard of what befell your brothers over Incandry’s Rest. That is why you are here, then. I must warn you, though my sympathy is with you – Garrocan has its own concerns and needs.’ If he judged her meaning right, the Fabricator expected requests of warship and warmachine – physical material. The time for that would come, of course. But for now…

‘Of course, Lady – Origanna.’ One hand unconsciously fell to the ceramite container at his hip. ‘I have, I think, a proposition you may be able to assist me with.’

The woman, the avatar, the finger, perhaps, or ear, of the Fabricator-General of Garrocan, merely smiled and said nothing, hands primly resting in her lap.

‘My apothecary, Zhigua, honor to him, took the risk to implant all the neophytes on Choroct when he heard of the news.’

‘Alone?’ Origanna’s voice hinted at surprise. ‘That is an undertaking indeed. I understood that the implantation process for a space marine requires much precision and care.’

‘It does. Some died. More than would have had he a full apothecarion and attendance, but less than could be feared. We number thirteen now. The cultured stores of organs that were intended for this initiation are exhausted. The rest…’ He trailed off. In his mind’s eye he could see _Argent Lance_ aflame, coming to pieces. As viscerally as if he had been misfortunate enough to witness it firsthand.

‘The great peril of your kind,’ Origanna agreed. ‘Few things are more mighty than a battle barge of the Astartes, as well I should know, but when bested, few losses as painful.’

‘Yes.’ Qin glanced down and slowly removed his hand from the ceramite container. ‘Now we have but a few progenoid remaining. We have always paid our tithe, of course, but Mars is…very far.’ Origanna nodded, casting her eyes to the ceiling, as if to see through the thousands of tonnes of metal, stone and through the sky to the Maledictum that darkened the sky like spilt ink. Then she met his eyes, a coy smile beginning to worm onto her lips.

‘Speak freely, good Khan Qin. What do you ask of me?’

The first time Qin rode in a drop-pod, he knew, intellectually, what to expect. He locked into the brackets with his brothers, all of them in the dark. Visors glowed and there was silence. He knew no fear, but he did know _anticipation_. When the impellers would fire, when the locks release, only the master of launch knew such things. All they could do, frozen in that dark coffin, was wait. Wait, and watch the red rune. The anticipation built, built. He knew what was coming. He feared no death in the void, nor did he concern himself with misfire or misfortune. But he needed to make that jump. He needed to see the rune blink green, to hear the locks disengage. To feel the gut-punch of magnetic acceleration.

It became intolerable. Seconds dragged by like hours. Time was syrup, and he drank too deeply.

Then, in that moment. When beautiful emerald light lit the interior – such relief. Such a weight gone, a weight he had not known had grown up upon his shoulders. And in every other drop he felt it not at all. The moment had come, passed.

He watched the red rune, now. The words waited at the tip of his tongue. This drop would be one way. There would be no Thunderhawk to return him to the _Unbridled_ after. Whatever he found on the world below, he would have to handle. Him. Alone.

Because who else could he trust with this?

 _Trust. No. One_.

That red rune burned crimson. He blinked, and made it green.

‘I have two geneseed in suspension. I request that you, Origanna-Mu, Fabricator-General of Garrocan, endeavor to culture and mass produce more. This I know can be done, for Red Mars does such for all foundings. We have not the means on Choroct, and the Host clings to life by a thread.’ The words fell from him in what seemed a rush, yet to his ears were not his own: heard measured and calm, delivered clearly and precisely, betraying the knot that curled his gut.

Origanna-Mu sat before him, the lightest frown at her brow, her lips thinning.

‘This is why I am of the Biologis, Qin.’

Her response was not at all what he expected and he blinked, momentarily nonplussed.

‘What?’

‘I expected many things you might request. You could claim a starship, for example. A destroyer tonnage would not be unreasonable, from the production in our holdings. Garrocan and Choroct have many deals and accordances, and as Khan, you could wield one such to begin to rebuild your starfaring might. You might, perhaps, try to brave the Maledictum to seek out brother Chapters.’

‘The Maledictum is impassable.’

‘So common logic states, yes. But Astartes, I have learned, are often possessed of uncommon logic. Such as,’ she gestured toward the ceramite container at his hip. ‘Such as offering up the most precious of your secrets in desperation. Garrocan is not Mars, Khan Nuumohk.’

‘Of that I am aware, Lady Fabricator-‘

‘It is not Mars!’ She stood in a flash, the sudden motion prickling his senses and he physically restrained himself from going for his pistol. ‘This offer is contrary to-I cannot even begin to name all of the proscriptions and commandments you have broken, merely by speaking such a possibility. You ask me, in essence, to execute a _founding_.’

Levered panels in the columns around them suddenly retracted, snub-nosed turrets emerging with metallic clacks. Even as he recognized the threat, Qin knew he was dead. Volkites. All of them. A single one could strip his armor to its molecules and then his body. He counted nine.

For the first time in his transhuman life, Qin felt very small. The sudden weight crashed down around him. He had suggested heresy to a Fabricator-General. It was almost unreal. He stood outside himself, looking in. What incredible, incurable stupidity had settled into him? How had he, but moments ago, felt so sure? So certain?

‘I request only assistance, from one loyal to the Throne of Terra to another!’

‘This assistance, little Astartes, could – would! – bring the Inquisition itself down upon me and my world. The wrath of all the Mechanicus following. Is that your aim, to temper the agony of your loss by dragging me down too? I cannot believe I am hearing these words. I retract my admiration – your apothecary is an imbecile.’ The volkites hummed, yet still held their fire. Qin, desperate, considered flight. But to where? And for what? This was his chance, his only plan. His one path to restoring his Chapter. Her words reached him through the potent cocktail of adrenaline – Zhigua.

‘He had no part in this. He refused this path.’

Origanna halted in her pacing about him. She halted, completely. Frozen. Her head alone turned toward him, as menacing as the turret of a superheavy.

‘Your apothecary refused your order?’

‘He told me I was a fool. He refused to be party to such an action. He insisted we wait upon Mars.’

‘Then what is at your hip, space marine? Do you lie, as well as speak heresy?’

‘I do not lie and what I ask is not heresy! It is _prudence!_ ’ He wrenched the container from his belt and unsealed it. A tiny glass bulb nestled within blast padding, cooled by helices of liquid nitrogen worked into the flask. Two lumps of flesh bobbed within.

He did not miss the naked avarice that flashed across Origanna’s doll-like face.

Nor did he miss all but one volkite fold away.

‘You…are very, very curious, Qin of the Second Horde. Khan I do _not_ call you. Who are you? Truly? Speak before I reduce you to ash.’

For the first time since Incandry’s Rest, he spoke the truth.

‘I am brother Qin. Third Squad, Second Horde. I am…’ he swallowed, the shame filling him. ‘I am no one.’

The last volkite folded away.

‘How did you know?’ he whispered.

Origanna returned to her seat and to his surprise she was grinning.

‘Brother Qin, Khan Nuumohk, whichever you pretend to be, you are so far beyond your depth it might be comical. Barely ten minutes into our discourse you speak so baldly of sharing the deepest secrets of your order at whim. How you fooled your compatriots I cannot fathom. Perhaps you are better at understanding the sublties of the Adeptus Astartes than you are of politics itself.’ She actually had the audacity to laugh and he felt a spike of anger. She was not wrong, but to be dismissed so simply, like a child-

‘But I am also very, very intrigued. You know I could kill you where you stand and what remains of your Chapter will thank me. No doubt your Apothecary will note the absence of these progenoids in short order. You did not even know me, yet here you banged upon _my_ door and had the purest of gall to come into _my_ house and demand my aid in committing some of the deepest breaches of trust and honor between Terra and Mars. And you are nobody! A line astartes! _This_ is why I am Biologis, Qin. Always does the flesh surprise.’

The fact that he was still alive was beginning to unnerve him. He itched to take hold of his pistol, to in some way feel protected. But the room was alive – the furniture, Origanna, the very walls. Where those volkites hid could be at thousand other weapons or artifices of the Mechanicum.

And he was not here to clash. He meant no harm, and most of all, no insult. She had to understand that this was necessity, how could she not? How could any law be greater than the restoration of a Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes, especially one so loyal as the Jade Host? Would not the benefit so far outweigh the negative as render it immaterial?

Could she not see the sector _needed_ the Host? Had she never seen the insides of the naval vessels, in the dark and aging corridors, how the markings of the Host set alongside Aquila and Terra? The Host was hope. It was security. The people needed it, now more than ever.

He needed it.

He tried to put it into words.

‘Lady Fabricator, I ask only for aid. A company, perhaps, no more, with the resources and your expertise –‘

She cut him off with a chop of her hand, the command behind it undeniable.

‘Such determination,’ she marveled, shaking her head, tossing her long curls. ‘I admire your kind, Qin, but you are not made to be decisive. You are made to be led and to follow. Your ancient fathers followed the Emperor. Your brothers follow the example of your ancient fathers. You follow those that served before. The ones that will come will follow you. It is a great procession of tradition and servitude that stretches across ten millenia, Qin. And your kind do not adapt well when it is disturbed. In truth, few humans do. It is a mortal failing, to grow comfortable with the familiar so that you are unmanned in the face of sudden change.’ Her voice softened as she spoke, her eyes gentle. He could hear the meaning behind the words, no different than Zhigua, or Tukayar. The implication that Qin was afraid. That he needed to just accept the loss of the Host. Accept it, Brother. Mourn the lost. Honor their memory. Stand strong.

‘So what am I to do with you? Do I return you to Choroct, to face the censure of the brothers you misled? That is an appealing option. I wash my hands of you and this…idea.’ She tapped one finger against her lip, not looking away from the opened container he held in his hands. Wafts of gasses and condensation rolled away and down to the floor as the chilled flask interacted with the air.

‘It would be as I deserve,’ he muttered. That would be it, then. Death, in all likelihood. What irony to survive Incandry’s Rest only to be executed by his own brothers for this betrayal. He almost saw it as cleaner, to die by the hand of a brother than be eaten by some beast of the devourer, but what cleanliness can come from an execution for faithlessness?

They would never understand why he did this and they would hate him. He was prepared for the hate, as long as he was right. As long as he could answer that hate with a company, more, of the Host, he could bear it.

But to return in failure, ignomious…

‘Or,’ she mused, ‘I could kill you now. Return what you stole myself. A cleaner end, I should think.’

‘I am Astartes,’ Qin stood abruptly. ‘I choose how I die.’ She did not blanche nor flinch.

‘You really do not. No one does. But I think it shall not be here, Qin, nor Choroct. I think that I am a fool greater even than you. You have two progenoids. I shall take one. The other shall be returned. We shall shatter the flask and say that you struggled against me when I denounced your offer. Then…’ she shut her eyes and leaned back on her elbows, a look of almost radiant pleasure on her face. ‘Then I shall taste what wonders there are in your genecode. And yes, Qin, I do think I will culture you more. Many, many more.’

On her face was avarice and he heard Iselyth’s words once more.

Trust no one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh. Hey. Been a while, huh? I don't like fanfic writers that fill up the page with excuses, so I'll just say 'Sorry, life is hard sometimes' and hope you can forgive it took so fucking long. Sadly, even metals can be flaky. Eheh. 
> 
> So I wanted to bind this part into Iselyth's next bit, but hers didn't flow quite so well so it'll be delayed. I'd rather put this out than smear myself along for another month or so trying to get Iselyth's chapter in order. Here's Qin being a cute lil noob who doesn't know how the world works and managing to survive by the skin of his teeth and a creepy Magos' obsessions. 
> 
> No fuckin' in this chapter, which makes it a FIRST for this series. The fuckin' might get a bit more sporadic for the time being, since neither of our heroes are exactly in the mood nor the situation for random boning.
> 
> Hey, hope you all are doing okay and that the 'rona hasn't gotten you. I would say expect the next Chapter in a couple of weeks, but that would be dishonest. The point though is I'm not done here, not by a long shot, even if I fuck off for a bit. As always, check my profile if you're concerned: I update at least once a month my status as (Alive) and still working on all this.
> 
> Oh right. Lewdanon, an old and famous name, did this: https://imgur.com/a/3i8IKEe  
> I was a bit vague on the description I gave them but it's adorable.


	3. An Uncommon Conspiracy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lies, conspiracies, deception - deeper Qin falls into the web spun by Fabricator-General Origanna-Mu. Between her hunger for the genetic secrets of the Adeptus Astartes and his own burning desire to see his kin remade, deals are struck, plans are made, and his hand is torn from the rudder of his life again.

* * *

**Obedience is not enough**

* * *

**SERVITORS CLUSTERED** around him, aiding in the removal of his plate. It smarted to shuck it, but the logic of Origanna-Mu’s point was undeniable. It burned that he had not thought his far ahead – he had thought his planning already sufficient, the rest held nebulous, as if Zhigua would learn of his theft and then be mollified that oh, yes, Garrocan was well on the way to culturing many more, not to worry at all, and the apothecary would simply clap his hands and admit that water beneath the bridge was just that. Yet still he was adamant – why should it not be enough? Khan or not, stolen title or not: Zhigua had accepted his authority. He should have understood the benefit of the plan Qin devised. That was the way of order: order given by a superior, followed by the subordinate. Never did Qin think to second-guess his own Khan, it felt alien that Zhigua should.

Now he could not go back. Origanna was unyielding on that. She would take his offer, yes, she would _gladly_ take the offer, but she had her own concerns. Namely – in concealing her own role in the matter. It seemed faintly ridiculous, as her plan was to culture two hundred implantable samples. Easily enough for two whole companies, or at least one company with many leftovers, assuming a less than flawless implantation set, which was likely. How, then, could one explain where all of this came from?

That would, she assured, be the simplest. She would sequester the samples into a series of stasis flasks and cast them adrift in the debris field of Incandry’s Rest. Perhaps stash it within some of the existing wreckage of a Host warship to complete the illusion. Set a time-delayed beacon, and then by the Omnissiah! Surprise! What a glorious find for the Imperial Navy! What a boon for the Host! What lost heroism had saved these precious stores! Still a small patrol detachment remained in-system, keeping eyes on the world for any sign of the Devourer. The captain who would recover it would be far too giddy over their discovery to dig too deeply.

And, at the crux of the deception, Origanna mused, was that the Host had lost _all_ of their techmarines. It would be adepts of the Mechanicus that certified the veracity of the find and as she so smugly declared: all those in this sector were _hers_. Maybe there would be suspicion. But without evidence, what fool would finger the Fabricator-General, upon whose expertise and forges the sector depended in this most dire of times?

So the Host would, by the great grace of the Emperor, be granted a boon. Tukayar could raise more recruits with the neophytes helping to train them. Zhigua could prepare for their ascension and Origanna, on behalf of the friendship between Choroct and Garrocan, would donate specialized Biologis adepts to assist in the operations under the most careful and comprehensive restrictions to satisfy the Apothecary’s requirement for security. That would be that. The Host would begin to rebuild. Long would it be a shadow of its former self, but with a new Horde, even of fresh, raw neophytes, it could begin again.

What Qin could not stomach was that he would not be there.

It would have been his hidden hand that caused this but he would not be there to help his brothers rebuild.

His crime was known – or would be, soon enough. Origanna now needed to keep her position clean. The story was set: her impassioned rejection, her declamation of the perfidy of Qin’s theft. Her skitarii wrestling with Qin for the stolen geneseed, unwilling to risk the destruction of what Origanna knew to be _so_ precious to the denuded Host. How Qin tried to flee and Origanna, heart heavy at the necessity, had ordered him shot down. All that could be returned was the crumbling remnants of his armor and a single geneseed which had been carefully recovered. The ruse had to be _unimpeachable._

‘It means, you understand,’ the Fabricator-General said, circling around Qin while he stood cruciform, servitors working over his plate, ‘that I will need a sample from you. To culture. Oh, a simple vat of stem-cells should be sufficient once sprayed into your plate. Enough that it may be tasted and proven that you had ‘died’ within it.’

Qin grunted. How out of hand it had gotten. Yes, he had stolen the seeds from Zhigua. Yes, he had misled them about his position. But it had all been for a greater purpose and that had been the extent of his deception. He would have revealed the truth in due time. Now this new path – it was a web of lies, spun by the master spider whose avatar smirked up at him. This was deception layered on misdirection and garnished with outright falsification. It sat ill with him. Perhaps it showed on his face.

‘There, there, Qin.’ She had not called him by his assumed rank since he had revealed the truth. ‘This is your purpose. A very noble sacrifice, indeed. Is it not more honorable to eschew the plaudits? Some might say that glory claimed was lessened and that a forgotten sacrifice is the more honest.’ Mu’s avatar drew closer, the same that he had met initially. His plate was nearly removed, leaving him in only his undersuit.

‘Give me your hand,’ she ordered. Sighing, he did as commanded, extending his right, palm down. She took it gently and to his surprise, raised it to her lips. Gently they pressed against his palm, before he felt a sharp and brief pressure and the mildest of pain. Releasing his hand he saw spots of crimson on her lips, which she licked away.

‘And there it is. Mm. There is so much in your genecode, Qin. So much.’ For a moment she shut her eyes and trembled. ‘ _Much_. This shall be _fascinating!_ How few of us ever have the delight to truly examine the Omnissiah’s glory firsthand. Leave your wargear with me. I will culture your sample and complete the façade.’ She snapped her fingers and Qin turned, hearing footsteps. One of the skitarii who normally warded the outside of her chambers entered, broad-shouldered, bulked with brass and matte-carbon armor plating. With Qin out of his own plate the skitarii was nearly of height.

‘This is Ryupho-0.’ The skitarii made no sound, merely standing at attention, rad-rifle slung on one bullish shoulder. ‘Run along, Qin. I have work to do. He will guide you.’

* * *

Ryupho-0 led Qin through cramped corridors and down darkened lifts with never another in sight. He felt like baggage, merely being delivered and kept his anger in check. Always did the universe see fit to conspire to act _upon_ him of late, rather than allowing him to act. Qin now even soured on the entire plan – it was almost as if he had been taunted, finally freed from trap of Incandry’s Rest, the universe dangled opportunity. Take command, Qin. Do what is right. Make your plans. Craft your schemes. All to laugh and snatch them away. It was _Origanna_ ’s now. She was in full control. His life was in her many, many hands, and there was nothing he could possibly do. Ryupho-0 could be leading him to an execution for all he was aware. The Fabricator-General did not hide her avarice at this opportunity nor did he miss how quickly she changed tack when she learned he acted alone. When she saw the opening. He felt strangely naked in just his undersuit, the sockets of his black carapace bare to the air.

What else could be done? Even without his wargear he could surely overpower the skitarii in moments. Then he would be alone, deep within the ziggurat of a biomechanical goddess whose only goal was to cover up her duplicity and to whom he had inadvertently brought one of her deepest desires. Should he manage, by some wonder, to make it back to Major Menbrecht and the waiting Valkyrie, how could he explain it? Origanna could turn the entirety of _Somnus Temptor_ against him with a single vox-call. Etremedes nearly worshipped the Host and such was it simple to request a berth as the _Temptor_ swung near Choroct on patrol, but that would mean nothing before the imperious command of the Fabricator-General.

He ground his teeth together and kept pace with the skitarii.

‘That is unhealthy,’ Ryupho-0 said in a flat monotone.

‘Excuse me?’

‘Molars, grinding. Undue wear will cause long-term damage.’

Qin snorted. Pipes above hissed and popped. The first words to be spoken to him by the Mechanicus warrior, and it was – _that_?

‘Your concern is…noted.’

‘Mm. My mistress has a timetable.’ Qin rejoined the skitarii and Ryupho-0 led him to a third lift.

‘Did your mistress also require I remain uninformed?’

‘She did not specify.’

‘Then perhaps you can enlighten me to our destination.’

‘I am capable.’ There was a moment of silence. Qin breathed in deep and let it out, quelling the urge to violence.

‘Will you?’

‘No.’

The rest of the ride in the lift was in silence. The doors rattled open to reveal a broad and well-lit expanse with a utilitarian and smog-stained shuttle parked at the far end. A hangar, clearly, of some sort. Ryupho-0 gestured for Qin to exit and the space marine rolled his shoulders, stepping out, senses heightened, instincts immediately tracking the open space around him. He smelled promethium, a mélange of oils, greases, powders and others – the tools of maintenance. But he heard, saw, and smelled no other living creature. Beneath the hum of recyclers, the hiss and crackle of lighting panels high above he detected no motion or sound of activity. It was merely him and the skitarii.

Who, incidentally, remained standing just beyond the now shuttered lift, stock of his rad-rifle between his feet, hands braced on the snout. Qin gestured.

‘Are we arrived?’

‘For now. You are to remain here. This bay is private and will not be entered by any save at my mistress’ command. Food and water will be delivered. You will need to leave this world. My mistress is fearful of your continued presence.’ This was the first Qin had heard of _that_ – she had only mentioned the outward deceit toward the remains of the Host. To appease Zhigua, who would no doubt rouse Tukayar and demand answers.

‘I cannot return to Choroct.’ Though the skitarii wore a full-face mask, shaped like some ursine snout, glaring with acidic green lenses, Qin could almost feel the scorn emanating from the warrior. It made him bristle.

‘Clearly not. You also cannot remain on Garrocan. Inchon is most likely. My mistress was particular on that matter.’

Inchon. The hive world in the same system as Garrocan, deeper into the well of the star. Qin had never been there in person but knew of it, of course, as it was one of the twelve primary worlds of the sector, not to mention being tactically important for its exports that supported Garrocan. Yet ironically he remembered there was a rivalry between the worlds – something about the Imperial Governor leery about Garrocan’s influence. Either way, the idea made logical sense. If he were to need to disappear, a hive world was perhaps the best option. The many billions of the world could, possibly, allow him to remain out of sight.

At least, as out of sight as one of the Adeptus Astartes could be.

The more he thought of it, however, chewing on the idea, the more ridiculous it seemed. Would Origanna-Mu simply drop him into a hive, somewhere? Qin was no master of stealth. He was trained to stand proud with his brothers and bear the banner aloft. He was not a skulker. He would stand out no matter where he went.

He voiced as much to Ryupho-0, who seemed disinclined to do anything but stand at attention. A ward, it seemed.

‘My mistress made no mention of any other plan.’

Qin rolled his eyes, leaving the skitarii behind and pacing around the bay, examining his new home for the foreseeable future. At least two Thunderhawks could comfortably slot inside the bay, likely even three with room to spare. Chains hung from long tracks along the ceiling, ending in electromagnetic grapnels and hooks for heavy equipment. The battered old shuttle was secured tight; though for one like Qin, it would be little to peel open a hatch. Idly he considered it, to wrest back control of his direction. He left it be. The decking was pitted and scorched in places, a few dented sections that he suspected, due to the triangulation between them, to be from landing skids. Aside from the lift there were two other entrances, one a cargo door twice his height and one a circular, irised hatch scaled to mortal proportions.

It was utterly and completely unremarkable.

He noted racks of tools – welding harnesses and long hook-levers, other assorted bits and bobs for mechanical repair. Most of which, he reasoned, would be more than useful as improvised weapons. Ryupho-0 did not budge from his post by the lift, but Qin felt the skitarii’s eyes follow him.

He found a crate, scuffed, one corner dented in, and sat. For a moment he took stock, looking over his bodysuit, the empty ports that studded his chest, arms and thighs. Once again just a piece on the board. His fate decided by powers beyond him. It was strange – such had been the way of his life for so many years as just another line Astartes, fighting with his squad. He did the command of his arbana, followed the order of his Khan. It was simple. Straightforward. Clear.

Mu was right. His kind was not built to be inventive. He had never considered it in all those years of service.

Incandry’s Rest – that tore away the film from his eyes. As his brothers fells around him, Talanseg and Jenui, Sarnai, Gerel – when all that was left was Qin, whose commands were left for him to follow?

But he did. He did. They made landfall to recover Chunul’s Banner. So that is what he did. That was the order he followed, though the voices that shaped it were silenced. He had not known that at the time. He could not. It gave him a purpose, a focus, a reason to fight on. Even after – he grimaced.

The eldar had not entered his thoughts in some time.

Even after he and the…eldar…had made their peace, aligning their goals, it had not changed his aim.

Until he had succeeded. And then – then there was nothing. Just waiting. Quiet. A strange time, for he had never been on his own in his life. Between wars, between deployments, his brothers were always there. Then to find the Host was gone. There would never be direction again. At first being adrift had horrified him. He thought he could know no fear, but he learned he could fear uncertainty. He could be uneasy at the concept of the shape of the world torn away.

So he took that uncertainty and he righted it. He made it whole. He would be Nuumohk Khan.

But now he was just Qin again. Just Qin, alone. Perhaps that was how he was meant to be, now. Alone in the world, without his brothers, without a purpose.

He stood and judged the size of the hangar, the circumference. There was nothing to do but wait. Ignoring Ryupho-0, Qin began to jog, following a hazard-striped track around the circumference. When all he had left was himself, his body became his first and last weapon. The only fortress he could rely on. He would keep it firm.

For a moment, he imagined he heard soft, measured footfalls matching his, whose stride was just as long.

* * *

A hiss and pressure change caught Qin’s attention – one of the hatches, the personnel one, had opened. By his estimation two full day and night cycles has passed since Ryupho-0 brought him here – true to his word, there had been food and drink delivered by mindless servitors, though the skitarii remained posted at attention. Qin’s frustration and feeling of helplessness ebbed and flowed. Sometimes he wanted to tear something apart, sometimes he felt truly sanguine. The worst though, was waiting. Knowing decisions about his life – his Chapter – were being made without him. For one who had been, until only most recently, a cog in the machine, now he found it tortuous to no longer have a hand on the wheel.

From the corridor beyond the opened hatch emerged what he assumed was an adept of the Mechanicus – a woman of indeterminate age, judging by the exposed mortal form, less enveloped and overgrown with technology than most. Her left arm was mechanical, encased in silvery metal and with articulated tendrils coiled about bicep and forearm, where they socketed home. Her face was unimpeded and he noted a resemblance to the Fabricator-General – a familial one, perhaps, like that of sisters, or maybe cousins. It was hard to tell with mortals. But from her hairline, beneath the crimson hood, he saw blinking diodes and threading of fine wiring, no doubt concealing a significant augmentation behind. Her robes obscured much else, though by the impression one knee made as she walked in her skirts, at least one limb was artificial as well.

A blurt of static, surprisingly loud, made Qin start and look round. Behind him Ryupho-0, almost imperceptibly, seemed to slouch.

‘Qin! My worthy conspirator. I see you are settling in. I hope you were not bored.’

The voice, despite the face, was unmistakable.

‘Lady Fabricator?’

The woman beamed and swept into the hangar, fluttering mechanical fingers at where Ryupho-0 stood. Oddly, there was no snaking cable behind her, as Qin would have expected. Her greeting, though, stuck.

‘I do not like the implication of ‘conspiracy’.’ Origanna strode to a nearby workbench, emblazoned with the cog mechanicus, and hoisted herself up to sit atop the flat plate of dented metal. It was taller than she, and her legs dangled freely like a child. She kicked her heels and, disarmingly, smiled wide. Strange – her implication in their first meeting was that she no longer _had_ a true, original form. He had assumed her mortal body had degenerated enough through the centuries that she might be but scraps of flesh in vitalizing fluid, maybe no different from a venerable dreadnought. But this magos appeared young and hale.

‘I’ve just faked the death of an Astartes and I’ve stolen geneseed, to which I shall do _unspeakable_ things. Conspiracy, I think, is the least of possible definitions.’ The reminder of his acts did not exactly alleviate his disquiet and he tried to formulate a proper response, one that would not insult his host. Ryupho-0 spoke first.

‘Speak freely, Astartes. This is not my mistress.’ Qin fought down a spike of adrenaline, his body already reacting as he considered the meaning. Not Origanna? Then some deception? A rival? Or-

‘You _wound_ me, Ryupho.’

‘Not as much as I would prefer.’ It seemed impossible to communicate distaste in the skitarii’s toneless, synthesized voice, but it was unmistakable. Clearly, there was some subtle nuance; some _Mechanicus_ nuance to this situation Qin was unaware of. He eyed the meter-and-a-half prybar he had appropriated from a workstation to work through combat forms with, though the weighting of it was poor and barely resembled even a rapier.

‘What good Ryupho _means_ is that I am not _quite_ who you think I am. I am Origanna-Mu [Ancillary, Designate Thre].’

‘She means she’s a crude copy.’ The magi sniffed, affronted, and crossed her arms in a pout.

‘I can’t believe you would speak to your mistress this way.’

‘Correct. I am not. You must understand, Astartes, that when my mistress feels the necessity to _micromanage_ , she will send one of these shades of herself to oversee a project. They are cloned minds, implanted into specially bred and built frames.’

‘And you called _me_ crude. Ugh. This body and brain is an extension of my will. So I can go where I often cannot.’ Origanna kicked her heels again against the workbench, then dismounted. ‘I am not generally very ambulatory,’ she remarked dryly.

Qin absorbed this. Or, at least, attempted to.

‘I…see.’

‘Ryupho quite hates when I do this. He is very literal. It’s a skitarii thing.’ The last she said in a stage whisper, holding up her hand to her mouth as if to block it from the other warrior. ‘So don’t listen to him. He is old and very set in his ways.’

‘As you say.’ He elected for a neutral response. Ryupho-0’s dislike aside, the skitarii clearly trusted this [Ancillary, Designate Three], as the Martian soldier had not moved to collect his radrifle nor cast anything other than insults.

‘As I _do_ say. I am tremendously sorry for the delay. Your Captain Etremedes was very distraught. He actually insisted on making planetfall. Insisted! Very inconvient. The _Somnus Temptor_ has broken anchor and is returning your mortal remains to Choroct. I have sent a contingent along as well to return the single progenoid. Naturally they are unaware of the truth. The best lies are those truly believed.’ Qin grunted again at the mention of lies. He hadn’t lied. Merely…bent the truth. And would have revealed it.

‘Now is the time for you to become scarce. Ryupho, my good man, have you informed our guest?’

‘Yes.’ Origanna put her hands on her hips and frowned at the skitarii. Then she looked at Qin.

‘Did he truly? Everything?’

‘Define everything, Fabricator. I know of your intent to hide me on Inchon.’

‘That is it?’

‘It is.’

Origanna huffed a dramatic sigh and strode up to the skitarii, who stood a foot taller than she. She rapped his helmet once with a single knuckle and the soldier moved not at all.

‘You are endlessly stubborn.’

‘You are a mistake.’

Qin watched the exchange, feeling more and more aghast. These were the beings into whose hands he placed his life. Pestering each other like children.

‘I will remember you called me that.’ Ryupho-0 rolled his broad shoulders.

‘Good. Perhaps my mistress will learn her lesson and I will not have your existence inflicted on me again.’ Origanna span away from where she stood by the skitarii, skirts awhirl in a disc of crimson.

‘As Ryupho _should_ have told you, I have a very minor request for you. He was correct in one regard: Inchon shall be your destination. its teeming masses will be the perfect cover for you.’

‘I am Astartes, Fabricator. Stealth is not my…strength.’ He spoke his concern aloud, though in the past two days he had not been able to strike upon a better plan. The issue he continued to chew upon was ‘what then?’ Supposing Origanna-Mu was able to infiltrate him onto the hiveworld, and he was able to adopt some pantomime to remain hidden. The question then was: what then? He was Astartes. He was _made_ for one purpose. To fight and kill the enemies of Man and defend the Imperium. He had no other reason to be. Was he to simply…exist? Linger for years, decades, longer? _What then?_

‘Of course. To return to my request. It’s quite uncomfortable. You see, Qin, a particular associate of mine many years ago fled Garrocan. He took a few things I had preferred he not, and he has set himself up on Inchon. You may be aware of the tension between our two worlds.’ That was an understatement. Inchon feared being gobbled up by Garrocan’s growing influence, after the Great Rift opened. The Mechanicus world was attractive, the primary source of a wealth of technology and hungrily demanded production, not to mention with the loss of the Host (his hearts still clenched at the thought) the skitarii regiments and Titan Legio of the world made it perhaps the strongest single power in the sector. The Lord Governor-General of Inchon was loathe for any influence of Garrocan to taint his world, even as he allowed the ongoing and vital trade. Qin merely nodded in confirmation.

‘Naturally. I have had issue bringing this associate of mine to heel. The sensitive nature of his experience also required a, mm, gentler approach. This is my request, and I do believe it meshes nicely with your need. I request you find this associate and you kill him. Kill him completely, Qin, as your kind are best at. Leave nothing left. This might actually be more difficult than it seems on the surface, but you are so very inventive, aren’t you?’ Origanna smiled again and curtsies, the sound of smoothly purring gearing emanating from her skirts as she did so.

‘I believe the payment for your assistance, Lady Fabricator, was access to the geneseed itself. Unfiltered.’

She sighed theatrically and threw up her hands.

‘A request! Just a request! A favor, you see, between pals. We are pals, are we not Qin?’ She sidled up next to him, attempting to throw an arm across his shoulders. She frowned at the height difference, then with a clicking, ratcheting shudder, rose up three feet.

‘Ah, there.’ He made no response to her pulling him into a conspiratorial huddle, though he felt a strange prickling down his back at the sensation of the bare skin of her arm against his neck. ‘I even have the most _perfect_ cover for you. Only the best, among friends!’

* * *

The shuttle fell through the skies of Inchon.

Rain lashed and howled outside the fuselage, making spidery tracks along the bubble canopy fore. Ryupho-0 sat at the controls, calmly and firmly arrowing the vessel through the buffeting gale and winds. Qin sat locked in bucket seat, curiously nearly his own size, straps and his own innate balance keeping him steady. Across the narrow bay was Origanna-Mu [Ancillary, Designate Three].

To an outside observer, the slender woman was holding onto a securing bar with one hand casually, as if completely oblivious to the rocking and trembling of the small craft. Beneath her skirts, Qin knew, was some manner of dramatic contraption of machinery and technology that likely was magnetized or otherwise welded to the deck.

She did enjoy theatre.

‘A shame we will be parted, my friend. Such sweet sorrow. One final time. Talk to me.’

In cheap, battered flak armor over a sweat-stained black tunic and padded trousers, Qin reflected on every choice he made that led him to this particular hell.

* * *

The aug shifted, clearly uncomfortable being surrounded. That was fine – it wasn’t his place to be comfortable, it was his position to understand his _place_. Which was, as yet, nothing. Proctor Gorman relaxed in his throne, eying the bulk of the man.

‘So you come all the way from Pylori.’ The aug nodded, a clumsy looking gesture.

‘Yessir. Didn’t have no options there, had to go elsewhere.’

‘And why is that, my good man?’

‘Killed m’ boss.’ His men’s fingers tightened on the triggers, warily casting glances at Gorman. Gorman though, was tickled by the honesty. The gruff grumble of the aug held no wariness or even shame at the admission.

‘Really? So forthright?’

‘Yessir. I got nothin’ to hide. Boss did me dirty. Boss wasn’t smart, tried to make me dead. I been loyal, I been good, he weren’t no good back. S’simple as that.’ Gorman laughed, and applauded.

‘Ah, you understand the social contract! A man is only as good as his friends, is it? And how did he treat you badly, my friend?’

‘Like I said, tried to make me dead. I was a fighter for him, lotta wins, lotta money. He wanted a big payday, meant my head. Way I figgur it, I’m worth more I keep winnin’, keep killin’, than I am once. A, uh, what’s it, investament, innit?’ Gorman steepled his fingers, tapping his lower lip.

‘Rightly so. You’d never have turned on him otherwise, would you have?’

‘Nossir. Boss did me right, up until he did me wrong. Never had a complaint, till he started with the wanting me dead.’

‘Even if others wished to pay you more?’

‘Naw. Get a rep for taking any money, soon enough no one’ll pay me. I had enough from the Boss. Gotta have some trust, yeah?’

‘Simple and to the point. I respect that.’ The aug nodded again, almost like he wanted to bow but the bulk of his body prevented it. A truly massive specimen this one. Half ogryn, but without the stupid. Gorman could well believe him an undefeated pit fighter – those fists alone looked fit to shatter rockcrete. His bare arms to the shoulder bulged with muscle under tan flesh – the aug’s forearm looked as thick as Gorman’s own thigh. A beast like this, at his beck and call; he could already see the uses.

‘Excellent, excellent. So you were a fighter? Cage-fighter? Bloodsports?’

‘Yessir. Right good too. People liked me, fighters liked me, till they had to _fight_ me.’

‘Well, I don’t need anyone like that, my friend. Perhaps in Pylori there was enough of a market for such games, but here in Inchon such things are beneath the respectable sort. I cast no judgements, mind you, but I have other needs.’

‘Well, sir, seems to me killin’ in a cage and killin’ in a street aren’t too far’part, ask me.’ The aug glanced to either side of him, to Gorman’s armored guards. ‘Looks t’me like Inchon got the same kinda business Pylori did too.’ One of the guards, stubber propped on his shoulder actually laughed, but Gorman smiled and allowed it.

‘I might indeed have need of a man to whom killing comes easy. Oh, I have many men like that, sure, but can one ever have _too_ many?’ The aug shrugged, massive shoulders rippling.

‘You’re the boss, Boss.’

‘That I am. Tell me, aug, you’re remarkably well-formed. Who did your work?’ The aug shrugged again.

‘Dunno, sir. Been told I prob’ly got Ogryn in my blood, ways back, but I dunno. Went t’see a sawbones, part of the deal with my old Boss. Was already big and strong, needed to be bigger and stronger.’

‘Combat enhancements? Gene-splicing? Muscular therapies?’

‘Sure, I guess. Didn’t listen much. Hurt a lot, but it worked, so I didn’t ask.’

‘Commendable, my friend. Why look a gift horse in the mouse indeed? I’ve a few men the size of you in my employ, but all are quite deplorable monsters. I’ve never heard one as big as you speak so clearly. You’re practically verbose.’

‘Thanks for saying so. Sawbones said he liked me, said I was easy to work with. Mall – uh, mally – uh amylable –‘

‘Malleable?’

‘Yeah, that. Said I was malleable. Said he really took his time and had fun. Dunno what that meant, but I wasn’t drooling and I wasn’t having those headaches like the other guys I knew, so I figure it meant good.’

‘Very good. A good head on that remarkably large body. Yes, I think I could certainly use someone of your size and…discretion.’

‘Well, I’d like t’be of service, Boss.’

‘As long as I don’t try to make you dead, of course?’

‘Well…yeah.’

‘My friend, everyone I employ is an investment. And I never like to waste my thrones. Fear not. You’ll want for nothing, so long as I have your loyalty.’ At this the aug did tip into a clumsy bow, like one he probably saw from afar and tried to replicate, childlike. Garmon laughed, delighted, and rose to bow in return.

‘Excellent! Excellent! Tell me your name, my friend, and Dort!’ Gorman’s voice went hard, sharp. One of his guards snapped to attention. ‘Bring us some food. Quickly!’ He shifted back to cheerful in a trice, beckoning the aug forward.

‘Mum named me Tsetyin.’

‘Tsetyin, mm? Exotic. I like it. Come and sit at my table. We will dine, we will drink, and we will be bonded. I will tell you what you will do for me and the murder you can make.’

Gorman chattered on, taking his seat at the head of the richly decorated table, waving for his guest to sit at the far end. The remaining three guards retreated to shadowed posts, taking up still position until their master called on them. ‘Tsetyin’ settled into a too-small chair, noticing every detail of the broad chamber. The sumptuous dining cloth atop the long table – threadbare, despite its appearance. The table itself, at a glance a rich wood, but in truth merely well-painted duracrete. The stains and rust hidden behind layers of paint clearly reapplied frequently.

Gorman was a puppet king, an up-jumped idiot, dressed in delusions and eking out his own little kingdom in the hard edge between the lawlessness of the underhive and the greater houses above in thin echo of the true palatial riches at the tips of the spires.

Qin smiled, timed properly in response to one of Gorman’s poor jests, but in truth in amusement at how easily the little king had swallowed his tale. The lingering vestigial memories of the man Qin now pretended to be were fading, leaving only the facts he had categorized away as important. That man, the real bloodfighter from Pylori, was free-floating ions, nameless, faceless, forgotten. The flavor of his brains had been abhorrent, but from the cooling flesh came the snippets needed to make the impersonation flawless. The coaching with Origanna-Mu [Ancillary, Designate Three] served to fill in the rest of the cadence and manner of speech. It was disturbing how quickly he picked up on the verbiage, shuddering at how the Emperor’s given excellence could be used for something as base and ignoble as stealing a dead man’s life.

Qin raised a toast of acidic wine in a plastek chalice shaped to resemble glass with one hand, remembering times when he had sampled ancient vintages from irreplaceable crystal.

The promise of what was to come made the first sip of this bitter vinegar more delicious by far.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ayyyyyyo another chapter within only TWO MONTHS
> 
> Fucking impossible.
> 
> So last time I said that this would probably be a Iselyth focused chapter, except that like the Eldar, her chapter is being fucking contrary and obstinate and just isn't coming as cleanly. This one fell together really easily, so hey, more Qin. 
> 
> This actually has me very happy, because this begins Qin's next main big arc that I've been excited to get to. It just needed the interstitial first. Next chapter will definitely be Iselyth focused, probably exclusively. She has a lot going on. 
> 
> Anyway thanks for reading, doubly for those that leave comments. Y'all keep me alive. Stay healthy out there fellas and thanks for coming back.


End file.
